


Seven Days 'Till Wake Up

by speakingofalice



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Brother Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fighting, Hurt/Comfort, Missing in Action, Original Character Death(s), Prisoner of War, Torture, Violence, War AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5442665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakingofalice/pseuds/speakingofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Men yelling, gun shots peppering the ground, smoke choking the air, a girl telling them to follow her and they do and they get caught and the girl gets killed. Flashes of throwing up blood and tearing his uniform to clot gashes on Raph's body. Someone begs for their mother, another asks for forgiveness from God. Death and darkness and blood all wrapped up in that one word; hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"They were soldiers, and sometimes that meant having to do things that sane people never would."_

"If only Donnie and Mikey could see me now," Leonardo mumbled to himself as he ran his dirt crusted fingers through his brown hair. Sweat dripped down the side of his face from his helmet. The helmet was too big for him, it slid down over his eyes obstructing his vision and generally annoying the shit out of him on a daily basis. The oversized pack on his back with four long, heavy antennas sticking out of it tore into his shoulders and pulled at his aching body.

Seven months he had been in Central America fighting with a squad from the 31st Light Infantry Division. Seven months of getting eaten alive by bugs and harassed by snakes and terrorized by rats the size of small dogs. Seven months and only a few letters from his brothers who were back home in New York, safe and sound and probably out protesting the war that Leonardo was fighting.

_They're probably marching in the streets with their other war-hating friends preaching for peace_ , Leonardo thought bitterly. His younger brothers didn't understand what was going on. They didn't understand why their older brother went to war. For the first month after Leonardo had been shipped over to Central America Donatello hadn't even written to him, he was too angry. When Leonardo did get the chance to Skype home Don hadn't even wanted to speak with him.

"He's just angry, Leo. He'll get over it soon," Michelangelo had promised.

"Why's he so mad, Mike?" Leo had asked as he tucked himself away in the corner of the tent that his squad of ten men shared. There had been no one in the tent at the time but all the same, Leonardo wanted even a small bit of privacy.

Mikey had shrugged a little, the iPad he was holding wobbled. "I don't know, man. I mean… you didn't really even tell us you were leaving."

Leonardo scoffed, "Yes, I did!"

Mike shook his head slowly. Even though they were thousands of miles away Leonardo felt like he could reach out and run his fingers through his youngest brother's smooth blonde hair.

"You know how we feel about this war, dude. It's stupid and you don't gotta be there in the first place. Why're there? Why did you hav'ta go even when we told you that you shouldn't?" Tears pooled in Mikey's eyes, he looked away from the camera. Leo lost his breath and had to bite his tongue to stop the wave of emotion that flowed through him.

Why did he join? Leonardo had asked himself that same question hundreds of times. He was eighteen, had his whole life in front of him, had a girl who loved him and a family that had hated war ever since their father had been wounded in Vietnam… So why did he join? Maybe it was all of the recruitment posters that lined the streets of New York with their pictures of strong men and weak enemies. Maybe it was their catchy slogans of  _Join the Army, become a man, defend your country! Protect your family, join the fight! America will always fight to defend the weak!_

Maybe it was because he'd graduated High School with no plans and no real want to go to college. He wasn't like Mikey who could barely show up for class yet always manage to get acceptable grades and he wasn't like Don who was already in college level classes and sweeping through them. He had to work hard, put long hours into his books and pay attention to everything and he just didn't want that anymore. He liked shooting guns at the gun range and he liked fighting and learning karate at the dojo his father owned, he just liked different things than his brothers and they couldn't understand that.

"This war is  _wrong_ , Leonardo. We shouldn't be over there.  _You_  should be here, bro," Mikey had said after a few minutes of silence. Leonardo had to look away from the face on the screen so his baby brother could see his anger, his disappointment.

_Yes, we need to be here._

Central America was the new 'zone'; it was the new threat on the United States. Drug Lords and Cartels and weapons depots and caches of billions handed under the table to local militias was the new Act of Terrorism. Local Militias plagued the jungles of Central America terrorizing the people who inhabited the villages and small cities. Small villages that were otherwise innocent would be the sights of brutal and bloody massacres from the militias. It got so out of hand that now, two years after the first reported attack on a village, fifteen thousand people – men, woman and  _children_  – were dead. The United States of America, thinking themselves a higher God that needed to swoop down to save all the poor countries in the world had decided to take it upon themselves to save the people in Central America.

That was why Leo had been deployed to these harsh jungles. To help stop those massacres. Mikey just wouldn't understand, he hadn't seen that things Leonaro had seen. Mike hadn't seen the children who were just skin and bones and sunken eyes and who begged for food that the soldiers just couldn't spare to give. Mikey hadn't had to call in airstrikes or pull the trigger while aiming his gun at another human being. Mikey never had to scrapple on the ground with another man in hand-to-hand combat as the enemy soldier held a knife to his throat – that one had been a close one and the thin scar that ran across Leonardo's neck was a permanent reminder of what had happened.

"You… you just wouldn't understand, Mike… I'm here so you don't have to be." Was all Leo said. They had both been silent for a minutes before the opening of the tent Leonardo was in was pushed aside and Salls and Hollywood – men in Leo's squad – came walking in holding a loud conversation with their guns laid across their backs ready to grab and fire at a moment's notice.

"I-I gotta go, Mike," he'd said quickly. Mikey opened his mouth to protest but Leo had cut him off, "Tell Dad that I said I'm doing okay and don't overfeed Klunk, that poor cat is getting fat from the pictures I've seen. Also, tell April that I said hey and that I'll give her a call here pretty soon. And… and tell Don that I said that I love him and I'll write to him the next chance I get even if he doesn't look at my letters'. Bye, Mike, I love you." Leonardo closed his laptop before Mikey had the chance to say anything back.

"Hey Hamato," Colonel Cotter, Leonardo's Commanding Officer whispered as he knelt down next to him in the dirt pulling the teenager from his thoughts. They had their backs to a large tree whose bark had been peeled away from a Napalm airstrike a month ago. The four other guys in the small scouting party were all hunched behind their own trees. Their camouflaged uniforms melting into the trees and foliage so perfectly only the whites of their eyes stood out. Leonardo licked his lips with a dry tongue and pulled the book that held the Codes from his back pocket. "Call in an airstrike near four-three-Alpha-ten. Then when you're done tell the chopper to give us ten mikes so we can get the hell outta here before the bombs drop."

"Yes, sir." Leonardo answered already dialing in the orders and translating them into their Code. After relaying the information to Command and getting the; "Order understood, proceed to your rally point. You have fifteen mikes until Napalm drop. Command out." Leonardo turned back to his CO and nodded.

"Move out men," ordered Cotter.

* * *

A large, heavy hand came down across Leonardo's shoulder starling him as he walked back to the Communications tent to put away his gear. Leo whipped around to see Raphael smirking at him with a crooked grin. Leo swatted his hand away.

"Jesus, you scared me," he laughed.

"I ain't Jesus, Blue," chuckled Raph as he used the nickname the men in their squad had given Leo. He huffed a sigh.  _Dad sends me_ one _pack of bright blue socks and it's like no one will ever forgive me for not sharing them._

"Call me Blue one more time and I'll call you Raphie for the rest of your life," Leonardo warned. Raph put his hands up in surrender as they fell into step with one another.

"Fine, fine, fine no more Blue. So, I heard the mission this afternoon went off without a hitch."

"Yep, it was fine you know, SSDD."

"Yeah," Raph gave out a hearty laugh as they rounded the corner to head into the Communications tent. "Same shit, different day."

Leo smiled and looked over at his friend. Even though they were in different squads Raphael was still one of the best friends Leo had ever had. Standing at a lanky six-foot-tall frame with bulky shoulders and fiery red hair, Raph stood out like a sore thumb. His hair was so red and grew so fast that Cotter made him lather it up with mud before every jungle mission because he claimed, "Your hair is a Goddamn beacon announcing our presence to the enemy!"

Raph entered the tent first then pulled it aside to let Leo and his massive backpack through. With a few grunts, some curses and a heave or two Leo unbuckled his pack and threw it on one of the two tables in the tent that weren't cluttered with important papers.

"Did Stockman go out with you guys today?" questioned Raph looking at a stack of papers that Leo was sure he wasn't supposed to be looking at. Leo plucked them from his hands. "Of course he was."

Raph shook his head and took his helmet off placing it on the table, crumpling some papers. "That fucker has been riding my ass for a week. I'm just glad he finally got off his ass and went on a mission instead of tryin' to command by proxy like he's doing since he got off the plane."

Leo rolled his shoulders trying to get all the kinks and knots out. His neck popped. "You gonna go to the mess and get some chow soon?"

"Na, I got a care package from home that's a shit ton better than the shit the Canteen is cookin'." Raph sat down in Leo's chair and took out his bowie-knife to hack away at the piece of wood that was always in the back pocket of his cargo pants. Little pieces of wood scattered over the table of papers with codes that Leonardo had yet to decipher for his squad. "You hear from yer brothers this week?"

Leo shook his head then turned away from Raph so the other teenager couldn't see the hurt on his face. "April sent me a package a few days ago and my dad emailed me but nothing from Mike or Don."

"It's okay man," Raph said sincerely. "They'll come around and besides it's only a week till wake up, you'll see them soon."

Looking up at the top of the tent Leo sighed and smiled slightly.  _Yeah, seven days until this deployments over and I can finally go home._

"What is the first thing you're gonna do when you get home, Raphie?" asked Leo shuffling old papers with codes that didn't exists anymore out of the way so he could take out the new papers and organize them. Raph leaned back in his chair with a small smile grazing his grizzled face.

"Kiss the ground then kiss my girl," he answered dreamily. "Then I'm gonna go to PJ's Burgers on the corner of 5th and High Street and order two of the biggest, fattest, juiciest burgers on the menu."

Leo's mouth watered at the thought. "Why two?"

Raph tilted his head to the side to give Leo a dumbfounded look, "One for me and one for you, dumbass."

"Sounds good," was all Leo said as he continued to work.

"And hey, I was thinkin', when we land back in the states I could introduce you to my brother, Casey, and I could meet your girl, April, then we could all go out for a drink." Leo nodded, that sounded like the best idea Raphs' ever had. Even if neither of them were old enough to drink, if they sauntered into the bar like they owned it with their dog tags hanging out of their shirts and deep tans on their skin from the Central American sun glowing in the dim lights of the bar no one would question them if they orders a beer and a few fingers of whisky.

"Deal," said Leo.

"Great, I think it's about time for my – "

A face popped into the Communications tent cutting Raph off. It was Mooch – Private Nathan DeSaw – and he was scowling at Raph. "Hothead, it's time for our watch duty.  _Actually_ , it was time to watch the Line about five mikes ago," he glared at Raph before turning to Leo. "Hey Blue, what's up?"

"Nothing much," Leo answered.

Raph hoisted himself up from Leo's chair then stuffed the chunk of wood into his back pocket and sheathed his knife. "Later Leo," he threw over his shoulder as he left the tent.

"Be safe," Leo called back to them as the flap of the tent swished shut.

The rest of the afternoon went by quickly and without much incident. There were no casualties from bullets or snakes or tarantulas or giant man-eating rats. All the men in the 31st Light Infantry Division were unnaturally cheery in the hot, dense jungle. They were about to go home. Seven days – one  _week_  – they could go home. All the fathers could return to beautiful children, husbands back to doting wives, sons back to their worrying mothers and fretting fathers. One week and they could all go home and try to forget about the horrors of war. They would talk away their troubles or drown them with alcohol. Either way they would be leaving this jungle soon.

Leo was peering over a large map of the surrounding area. Small black marks dotted the map in places where the Charlies – the enemies – were thought to be hiding while larger gold bars marked the places where American Forces were stationed. The eighteen-year-old was too busy decoding the most recent message then adding corrections to the large map to notice the first shot that rang through the musky air. Gun shots were common, an everyday occurrence. It was the second burst of machine gun fire that caught his attention making him look up from his map slowly. A scream sounded through the unit's camp so loud Leo flinched.

"Ambush!"

The scream was silenced almost before it was heard. More gun fire answered the enemy fire, Leo could tell, from their side. The sound of running boots past the tent he was in made him stand up with a start from the map. He quickly removed his thick rimmed reading glasses after hearing the screams of men a ways from the closed flapped tent. More sounds of boots hitting mud sounded in Leo's ears. Someone was running towards his Communications tent.

"Third Squad follow me!" Someone yelled, it sounded like Sergeant Stockman.

Leo grabbed for the automatic that was always near his side. The gun was big and whole in his hands. If he were to be attacked he wouldn't go down without a fight. He would not die here. Leonardo felt his heart thump faster. His muscles tightened in anticipation and fear fueled his need to protect himself, to  _not_  die. Suddenly, the flap of his tent jerked open. Leo aimed his gun, ready to blow whoever it was away.

The dirty, sweaty face of Raphael peered into the tent. He was breathless; a slim line of blood ran from his temple. His too-red hair stuck out from under his helmet and was plastered to his forehead by sweat. Dirt and mud and blood caked the greater part of his face. His chest was heaving, his eyes looked wild. This was a whole new Raphael than Leonardo had ever seen.

Leo let out a quick breath before loosening his finger slightly from the trigger. He looked down at Raph's gun. It was practically smoking in his hands. The magazines that usually crisscrossed his chest were gone, probably already having been used.

"Everything is FUBAR up man, we gotta go, we gotta go now!" Raph rushed into the tent, Leo stayed frozen as another bout of gunfire peppered overhead.

Then he heard it, it was just like deep whistle that got closer and closer as the second ticked by. The whistle of the rocket was silenced for less than a split second before the ground beneath Leo's boots shook and the cries of men assaulted his ears. Stacks of papers slipped off of the makeshift table and tumbled into a mess on the ground. There was more popping of gun fire, cries of men trying to organize the chaos, someone in the distance was pleading for a medic.

Raph was still breathing hard, he gripped his rifle with white knuckled hands, "It's a cluster-fuck out there Leo, our whole company's up Shit Creek without a paddle. We gotta go man, we gotta  _go_!" By the time the last words left his mouth Raph had grabbed a hold of Leo with shaky, gunpowder blackened hands and was hauling him towards the flap of the tent.

Another whistle, the ground shook harder, Raph stumbled.

"Wait!" Leo had to yell over the sounds of war behind waged outside the tent. "The codes! I can't leave without them!"

"We don't have time! There comin'!" Raph growled forcing Leo to move. His eyes were on fire.

Leo dug his feet into the ground forcing them to a halt. "We are the United States Army for Christ's sake! There's no way the local militia could break our perimeters. We-"

"We've only got a  _unit_  worth of men! A few squads, that it dumbass! Everyone else is with Colonel Trapper for their mission Command sent of last week," Raph dug his nails into Leo's arms. "They brought their whole damn  _army_!"

"Colonel Cotter would never-"

"Colonel Cotter is dead, man. They breached the perimeter."

_That's not possible,_  Leo thought, a knot forming in his throat. Their perimeter was always secure. It was half a klick out of the Commanders base, were Leo and Raph stood now.

Raph's hand tightened again. "The Charlies killed Mooch in front of me. Jameson tried to call for back up but he bit it too and the transmission got cut. Holloway, Fox and Salls went to go check it out..." Raph paused, his voice sounded hollow. The pepper of gunfire sounded closer. "Their all dead. We gotta go!" Raph pulled him aggressively. He was finished talking, it was time to go.

Leo dug his feet into the ground further stopping his friend from pulling him out of the tent.

"I can't go without the codes!" he yelled in Raph's face over the bullets shooting outside. He knew that those codes in the hands of an enemy could spell disaster. Those codes could be used to uncover secrets that were supposed to  _stay_  secret save for the few cleared individuals, like Leo, who were allowed to know them. "I gotta take them with me!"

Raph's eyes were big and wild as he looked around the two tables that held maps and schematics, codes and partially decoded messages. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, "Do you have them memorized?"

Leo stopped his frantic flinging of papers into his camouflaged army pack. He nodded once before grabbing the next set of papers and stuffing them into the bag.

"Burn them, all of them. We don't have time, we gotta go  _now_!"

Leo looked up just in time to see a small lighter being flung at his head. He used his reflexes to catch it but held it in his hands for a moment. If he burned these papers and he didn't have them memorized right... Oh hell, he'd be in so much trouble. "I can't. I-"

He was cut off as a spray of bullets tore through the top of the tent. Leo hit the ground hard a second after Raph did. His cheek stung and when he pulled his hand from his face crimson blood pained his fingers.

Oh shit.

"Leo!" screamed Raph already moving out of the tent. Leo didn't even think twice, he couldn't think, everything was happening so fast. He grabbed the papers from his bag then lit the ends and edges like he's seen villains on TV do to evidence when they were tormenting the hero. The first paper went up like dry leaves. The second was soon to follow then the third went until all the papers were at some point of burning.

"Come on!" Raph was practically begging, his helmet askew on his sweaty head. Leo chanced one more second to grab his gun before he was out the tent.

Fire, almost like the fire that was burning through the Communications tent spread in front of him. Men were running from the woods towards him - American men with flags on their shoulders and camouflage shifting with their bodies. It was loud and disorientating. Behind him he felt the heat of fire licking up from the burning tent but in front of him he could feel the same fire a thousand fold as it raged across the jungle.

"Retreat! Why'r you just standing there Blue? Run you son of a-"

The man running toward him – Sergeant Stockman – was cut off as the ground exploded next to him and he was thrown sideways. Leo looked on in horror as he saw the blood start to pool around the side of Stockman's caved-in head.

More screaming. More bouts of gunfire. They were being overrun.

Someone, something, grabbed his hand that wasn't holding his unused gun bringing Leonardo back into reality.

"We gotta go, man!  _We gotta go!_ " screamed the voice in his ear. Raph forced him along by the sleeve of his jacket. Quickly, Leo turned around to run.

Without thinking and just letting his feet take control he ran after his friend. They entered into the jungle that wasn't cleared, where the vines still licked at their feet, tree roots made them stumble before they even knew they were falling and plants blocked their view for more than three feet in front of their faces.

Walking through the jungle was hard without a machete. Running, borderline impossible. In training at basic it had been beaten into Leo's head to always pick up his feet while in enemy jungles. IED's, hidden explosives that the locals annoying planted into the ground was only one thing that could go wrong by taking a bad step. One fowl step and you'd be sky-high even before you knew what was happening.

His legs were burning, Leo thought they were about to fall off. He forced his legs to go faster to match Raph's who was taller, a bigger stride. They needed to put as much distance between those Charlie's that were murdering they're unit as they could. In front of him, Raph disappeared into the vegetation a few seconds before Leo broke through and ran head first into his back.

"Raph, what the - "

"Shhh!" Raph clamped his hand over Leo's mouth, his eyes were blown wide. Leo looked over into the clearing that a small village had molded itself into. There, standing in the middle of the village were Charlie's with guns in their hands and what looked like half the village herded into a pile. They were talking in Spanish, their gruff voices echoed to Leo's ears.

Raph and Leo hesitated, what was there to do? They couldn't turn around - the militia was right on their heels. They couldn't go forward. They were stuck.

"Soldier... Soldier!" A voice hissed from the side. At once both boys looked over to the mouth of the jungle. Leo saw nothing, only more green jungle and canopy leaves, so he turned back to the villagers that hadn't yet realized they were there. The Charlie's in charge were still yelling at the people, brandishing their weapons threateningly.

"Soldier!" The voice said louder.

"Dude," Raph said patting Leo's shoulder looking over to where he heard the voice, "I think there's someone over there," he finished on a whisper.

A girl, no older than fifteen came out of the jungle just far enough to be seen. Her tan skin and brown hair looked clean but her clothes were dirty. A stark contrast. She made a gesture to follow her then started to walk away, back into the jungle.

Leo looked over to Raph who shrugged, "Stuck between a rock and a hard place already. What the hell." And he turned to follow her. Leo wiped the sweat from his brow then trotted to catch up to them. They entered back into the jungle but kept to the shallow side. They were following the girl as she skirted the village, giving the place a wide berth.

"Think we can trust her?" mumbled Leo into Raph's ear.

"Best chance we got. I saw at least fifty Charlies back at camp."

"Are…" Leo licked his lips losing his voice for a moment. "Do you think… Doc and Ryan and Salls. Do you think, I mean - "

"Their dead, Leo." Raph didn't turn back to look at him, he kept his eyes on the girl. "They're all dead. We weren't ready. Everyone starting slakin' 'cause we're supposed to be goin' home in a week."

"Soldiers, please," whispered the girl turning to them and putting her finger to her lip trying to silence them. They were almost clear of the village.

Leo bit his lip hard then murmured, "This wasn't supposed to happen. What about Colonel Cotter's new baby and Duke's wife? We gotta go back, man. I know I saw Stockmen get hit but he might still be alive. We gotta go see, Raphie."

"No, Blue," Raph said darkly. "It's… It's no use, their gone."

Leo stopped in his tracks, "What happened to never leave a man behind?"

Raph stopped and turned sharply on his heals ready to grab Leo again. "What happened to you not being a stupid idiot? Everything is FUBAR man, its shot to hell. Now  _move_."

A lump formed in Leo's throat… dead. His entire squad, dead.

"Get it together Leonardo! This is war, shit happens," Raph hissed before turning around and taking another step. Leo begrudgingly took another step after him.

Something hard came down across Leo's face. He couldn't stop the scream that ripped from his mouth as the heavy object came down again on his forehead and everything went black. The ground beneath his feet started moving, was someone dragging him? His face felt wet. Was he crying? No. He was a soldier, soldiers don't cry. It had to be something else.

Blood? Was it blood that dripped down his face? He didn't know.

"Let him go, jackass!" shrieked a voice from behind him that sounded like Raph. The ground came up to meet Leo's face so fast he couldn't even put his arms out to stop his fall. He slammed against the dirt with so much force that he moaned involuntarily. His vision blurred. Voices, rough Spanish voices and lighter feminine voices cut through the haze that had settled through his head. Someone screamed. It was high and shrill, the brave girl that had tried to save them maybe?

Again the ground moved, no  _he_  was moving. Someone had grabbed him and was now hauling him away. They threw him up against something hard – a wall maybe? – that he slid down. His chest was heaving trying to catch his breath. His head hurt, it made his eyes water as his head pounded in tune to his heart. He felt his arms being pulled up and looked up at the person touching him. The man was sweating and dirty. His face was marred with stubble on his chin. He was tan and wore a deep green uniform. He was a Charlie. The enemy.

"You are codes officer, yes?" The man's accented voice asked loudly grabbing at the rank markers on Leo's shoulders. The noises around Leo seemed to stop. Raph quit yelling, the girl who tried to save them quit screaming. It was quiet. Leo said nothing. The man pulled his gun up to Leo's head. A cold ring pressed hard against his pounding forehead.

"Get away from him!" Raph screamed again.

Leo overcame the fogginess in his brain as he heard the urgency in Raph's voice, the fear. Leo could feel himself shaking. The barrel of a gun was pressed against his head. He was surrounded by hostiles. He was going to die. At eighteen he was going to die.

_Mikey... Donnie, I'm so sorry_ , he whispered in his head.

"You are code keeper," repeated the man above him.

"Get away from him!" yelled Raph again. Leo looked over and drew in a breath. Raph was on his knees not twenty feet in front of him, another man held a gun to the back of his head.

Leo grabbed his voice from deep in his chest and tried to sound in control. "Raphael, shut up," he attempted to sound calm

"Quiet!" hissed the Spanish man jabbing him in the head with the gun. "You know codes? Answer or friend dies." The soldier who stood behind Raph pressed the barrel of his gun into his head.

"Leo, don't say –"

"Quiet!" The man behind Raph ordered.

Leo stuttered, he didn't know what to do. He couldn't think, his head hurt too bad. "Y-yes. I am," he said finally. The Charlie above him nodded, a smile curled around his yellowing teeth.

"Good, we want you," In quick Spanish he called to the men holding the gun to Raph's head, "Kill him," he ordered.

Leo lurched forward, screaming, "NO!" The look on Raph's face was one of pure terror. "STOP!"

The sound of a body hitting the ground reached Leo's ears before his brain registered the body - his body,  _Raph's_  body - crumpling against the dirt. Leo couldn't even remember if he'd heard a gunshot or not.

Leo wanted to scream, his heart stopped. His throat burned. His body wouldn't move. He wanted to run, to hide, to fight. He wanted his gun so he could shoot the man that shot... The man that  _killed_  his best friend.

He wouldn't,  _couldn't_  move. His body was numb, he was shaking. His heart exploded, his chest was empty. He wanted to run but he was frozen. He wanted to fight but he couldn't move. He wanted to scream but he had no voice. He wanted to cry but he couldn't find the strength. He was numb. The only kind of numb one felt when they lost someone.

He couldn't breathe, was he breathing? He couldn't move, where was his body? The world melting away until it was just Blue and Hothead. Just Leo and Raph.

No, it wasn't Raph anymore, it was just his body. Just a body. A broken body that once belonged to his best friend.

"R... Raph..." Leo's haggard voice felt foreign in his ears. He couldn't take his eyes away from the crumpled form of his best friend. They had made a promise that they would, no matter what, stick together and look out for each other. They would be together even when they came home from war. They would always have each other's back but now... Now Raph... He was. He was...

The hands that were holding Leo suddenly let go, Leo fell to his knees unable to hold himself up any longer. He'd seen people die before but this… this was Raph, Raphie, Hothead. This was his best friend, his  _brother_.

Leo couldn't take his eyes off of Raph's body. His mind didn't even register the fact that there was no blood pooling around the body. All he could see was Raph's crumpled form.

Then the world stopped as soft moan came from Raphael's body. His finger twitched, then his leg moved. Two words registered through Leonardo's numb mind.

_Not. Dead._

Leo never had the chance to scream Raph's name. The butt of a rifle was brought down across the back of his head plunging his world into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

_"When the first one dies, you die too. On the inside you die with every one of your soldiers."_

When you're a kid war is just a game. Fingers are guns. Rocks are grenades. Dirt piles are embankments and makeshift trenches. The front lines are your back yard. When you get shot you do down with theatrics yelling that  _you're hit! You're hit!_  Then falling to the grass your father just mowed with flailing limbs. You thrash around on the manicured lawn until you've decide that you've bled out and stop. You stay still until you've decided you've been 'dead' long enough. After that point you jump to your feet laughing while you're friends are laughing. You continue on killing each other until your mother call you inside for dinner. It's all a game and it's all fun.

But war, it's not a game.

Something crunched near Leonardo's head pulling him from the blackness of unconsciousness. He fought tooth and nail to stay inside of it. To keep the black nothingness wrapped around him. He was confused, angry, and he knew if he left this nothingness that surrounded him it would all get worse. He heard another crunch then a groan, it sounded nearer, too near. Leo felt scared. Whatever that noise was it was too close and he still had his eyes shut. Steeling himself he forced his eyes open. He needed to be brave. But, nothing happened. He tried to open his eyes but they were stuck, too heavy. Something hard and rough was under his cheek and the side of his face. It was painful. He hurt. Everything hurt. His eyes wouldn't open.

Another groan. Leo was almost sure it had come from his mouth.

"Shh... -nardo," Someone whispered softly near his aching head. "It's okay... Okay, Leo. You're... be fine... fine." The voice was getting farther and farther away, like it was backing down a dark tunnel.

Softly, something touched his head. Leonardo still couldn't get his eyes to open. They were glued shut. Absently Leo thought of a toddler with Gorilla Glue smearing it across the rims of his eyes and pinching them shut until they dried. There was a muffled sound above him. Someone was speaking.

Leo felt himself whimper as the speaking voice gingerly moved his head so his cheek came off of the hard, rough surface. Leo felt himself cry out as a sensitive part of his head was touched maybe purposely, maybe accidentally. Fire licked down his neck, his heartbeat drummed in his head. Slowly he felt himself being placed back down on something soft, warm.

"Get some sleep," the voice commanded. It sounded familiar, comforting. But Leonardo couldn't call a face to it. His mind was too muggy, too pain filled. His head beat too loudly to concentrate. Using one last pull of energy and hope, Leo forced his eye lids to unstick. As soon as his eyes opened he was assaulted by light. His eyes felt like they were being burned through. He tried to jerk his head to the side and pull his arms up to cover his face but they refused to do his bidding. When he moved his neck more pain flared from his head. Tears brimmed his eyes and ran down as agony shot down his body.

"Leo. Blue! It's okay. It's okay! Shhh... Shhh, you're okay. You're okay." A hand came down over his eyes and another one was placed on his chest rubbing soothing circles. "Shh, Leo."

Darkness grabbed at Leo as his head fell to the side and he passed out.

* * *

This time when Leonardo came to he didn't feel as heavy, his eyelids weren't glued shut. Tentatively, Leo opened his eyes and blinked three times. There was something tall and brown an inch from his face. The closeness of whatever it was scared the teenager into jerking back.

Pain. His head drummed. Leonardo brought dirty hands up to his head trying to keep his brain from leaking out his ears.

"Morning Sleeping Beauty," came a rough voice. The voice startled Leo but he was smart enough this time not to jerk around. Instead he closed his eyes against the orange light that blanketed around him and then slowly, deliberately twisted and hoisted himself up until he was in a sitting position. The pounding in his head settled some when he let himself fall gently against the hard wall. When he stopped moving, Leonardo finally opens his eyes. It took a few moments for them to adjust but when they did Leo gasped, tears leaked from his eyes. Without thinking he jutted forward trying to get closer, needing to touch, to prove that he was really there. That he was real and not some ghost.

"R-Ra-" was all he got out before whatever was under him supporting his weight - his legs, his knees, his arms - give out and he fell to the ground, face first and eating dirt.

The figure that sat on the other side of the small hut they were in jumped to his feet, "Maybe you should go back to sleep."

Leo looked up as Raphael knelt down beside him and grabbed his waist. The red haired boy pulled gently until Leo was sitting up again then even more gently set him back against the side of the rough wall. Bits on rock dug into his back. Raph looked down into Leo's eyes as he moved his head up so he could get a better look at the boys' pupils.

Leo coughed wetly looking up at Raph, tears ran unashamed down his face. "R-Raph, I-I thought you were dead… Am... am I dead?" He had to be dead. He'd seen them shoot Raph in the head. He'd seen the man brandish his rifle and point it at Raph… didn't he? Didn't Raph get shot..?

Raphael took a long breath before sitting down next to his best friend. He bit his lip thinking about when he'd woken up seething Leo's body twisted and tangled at awkward angles at the other side of the hut. He'd panicked, jumped over to his friend already convinced that he was dead. There was so much blood around his head, too much...

But then he'd moved. He groaned. He was still alive.

"I ain't dead Leo, an' neither are you."

Leonardo took a deep breath mentally pulling himself together. He was a soldier, he needed to keep his head on straight. Leo blinked four times before the world around him came into better focus. Sitting up had helped; it cleared some of the cobwebs from his head. Looking around, Leo took in their surroundings. They both sat in a small room. It looked to be made out of the same mud and rock consistency that the locals made their small shanty-huts out of. There was one window near the top of the rocky brown wall that was big enough to light up the entire space yet too small to fit through.

 _Damn_ , Leo cursed. The hut was a circle in shape with only one door that was on the opposite side of the useless window. The door looked solid. Solid and locked.

He started, "Is the door-"

"Locked."

"Damn."

Raph sighed heavily. "The Charlie's came in a few hours ago. They just looked at us and talked to each other in Spanish, I couldn't understand them. Then they left."

"Does this means we're... What? Prisoners?"

"Guess so."

"Damn," Leo repeated again, there was nothing else to say. No other words to express.

They were silent for a few minutes, both thinking over the events that landed them here. Faintly, Leo thought he could still hear the screams of his friends. The way their guns peppered against the ground around his tent. He could still feel the fire, it licked and burned and torched every important file and piece of paper he was issued.

Dead. All dead. Dead or scattered or captured.

" _What happened to never leaving a fallen comrade?"_

" _What happened to not being a stupid idiot?"_

Sweat dripped down Leo's forehead mixing into the dried blood that had already painted his face from being hit by the butt of the Charlie's rifle. Not for the first time Leonardo felt choked by the heat. He pulled at the collar of his army camo jacket. He pulled once then twice trying to get stagnate air to rush into his clothes to help cool down his already overheated body. He pulled again on his collar then stopped when he heard nothing. There was no jungle coming from his chest. Quickly, almost frantically, he grabbed for the tags that were supposed to be hanging around his neck. When he only felt sweat slicked skin his heart sank. He had no tags. No identifying number or name. Nothing that showed his identification number or his religious preference of Protestant Non Denomination.

"They took my Dog Tags," he tells Raph letting his head fall against the side of the hut. His hand, now sweaty, also falls dejectedly to his side.

Raph nods slowly gnawing on the side of his cheek, "Mine too."

"Nothing to I.D us."

"Nope."

Again they are quiet. Something outside of the hut stirs, voices seep through as muffled and foreign. Leo doesn't hear anything he recognizes. He's fluent in Spanish – he had to be to become a Communications Specialist – but he doesn't hear anything that makes any sense. Suddenly a voice close to their door laughed. It was deep and throaty and Leo jumped slightly. Someone ran in front of the door. The sound became softer and lighter as the person running passed and got further away.

"I think we're in the middle of a village," said Raph looking down at his fingernails. His too-bright red hair stuck to his forehead.

Leo looked at his best friend, "Where are we?"

"We're in a hut," he answered eyeing Leo stupidly.

"Why are we in a hut? I always thought that POW's were caged underground," Leo huffed out a humorless laugh. "In like, dank cells with one light and dripping ceilings or something. And some guy threatening us with guns and needles and demanding to know all our secrets."

"Yeah well, looks like we just get stuck in a hut." He was quiet again, watching the door. "Heh," Raph says suddenly, then grumbles, "stuck in a hut... That rhymes."

Leo jerked his head over to look at Raph. A ghost of a smile was stretched thinly against his lips. Raph didn't look over at Leo, he stared forward and let his thin lips mold into a slightly bigger smile.

"Shut up, Hothead," Leo chuckled shaking his head slowly.

"Whatever you say Blue."

They were both silent after that, both listening to the sounds of outside. There were more voices muffled by the thick door separating them. Younger, lighter voices yelled playfully back and forth to one another. Their sounds wafted through the small open window.

"Pasa la pelota! Ven a pasar! ¡Pásalo!"

"You speak Spanish, right?" asked Raph after listening to the children's voices for a while. Leo nodded, staring at the far wall listening to the children and imagining what they looked like by the way they spoke. He ran his tongue over his lips, he was thirsty. A bead of sweat dripped onto his tongue. It tasted dirty and salty.

"Vamos, su mi turno para jugar con la pelota! Se acabó para siempre ya!"

"Come on, it's my turn to play with the ball… You've had it forever already." Leo translated to Raph. He slimed slightly at the wine in the boys' voice. He sounded just like Mikey...

There was a commotion, the sound of rustling and shoving. Something hit the dirt then another something. More sounds of scuffling and then there was a roar of children yelling and egging on. One voice was distinctly older sounding than the others. It yelled over the other children forcefully. But it sounded more brotherly commanding than fatherly.

"Vale, vale. Eso es suficiente Hector. Basta usted loco!"

Raph looked to Leo expectedly.

Leo let the words translate in his head then roll off his tongue without really thinking, just letting his mind work. "He's just telling them to break it up."

Leonardo's heart sank as he listened to the older boy speak again to the others. He was reminded of himself whenever Don or Mikey started getting into a fight over something stupid and he had to step in and break it up.

"Hey Blue?"

Leo looked over to Raph, "Yeah Raphie?"

"Why did your dad always sign  _Splinter_  at the end of his letters to you?"

Leo looked at him, dumbstruck, "How did you-"

You left an email open a while ago on you're iPad an I saw it." He admitted almost guiltily. "Sorry, I was board. It was when you went out for a walk through with Captain Bennison ."

Leo nodded remembering going out on a jungle mission with Captain Bennison and the rest of his team a few weeks ago. They needed a communications specialist to relay messages back to command while they scouted a possible Charlie outpost. Stockman had been among them complaining per usual about the heat and how he should have become a scientist instead of a soldier. At that time Leonardo had wished the man had become a scientist as well just to save him the headache of having to listen to him bitch and moan about the heat and the weight of their packs and LAW rifles.

Leo licked his dry lips with his even drier tongue. He'd never really told anyone about his father's nickname, no one had really ever asked actually. But, Leo figured, there was really nothing else left to do in this small, hot hut other than talk.

"It's just an old nickname of his. Kind of a long story."

Raph raised an eyebrow at him. "We got plenty of time."

Leo shuttered then nodded his head slowly. "His got the nickname in Vietnam. He was drafted but he said that he would've joined anyway even if he didn't get chosen. He was a paratrooper. Anyway, so him and about ten others were ordered to jump down into this hill in Khe Sanh. The Marines there were having trouble keeping the hill and they asked for backup."

"Those Devil Dogs needed backup? No way," Raph chuckled remembering the Marines who had come through their camp a few months ago all chiseled and growling with thick arms and tattoos.

"Yeah," Leo smiled slightly. "So my dad and his team jumped near the hill and we about there when Viets started shooting at 'em from the ground. They killed his buddy Yoshi right away. Dad said a bullet went right through his forehead... Yoshi was dad's best friend, he used to tell us stories about him all the time... Anyway, they shot through his parashoot and he free fell the rest of the way to the ground. He hit a tree going fifty miles an hour and it snapped his leg in half. Almost tore his arm off too. A big splinter from the tree went right throw his hand. When the Marines finally found him he had taken up position in a ditch at the bottom of the hill with the three others who had survived in a ditch at the bottom of the hill. He had set his leg using wood from the tree he'd demolished."

"So that's how he got his name?"

"Yeah." Leo coughed, his head swam. It was so hot. "He had to keep that splinter of wood in his hand for three days while they waited to be rescued. He knew if he had taken it out he would've bled to death."

Raph rearranged and slid until he was laying down, his bright red head close to Leo's thigh. "Sounds like a badass."

Leo didn't say anything. He couldn't. He felt ashamed talking about his father. He knew, deep inside that if his father had been here he could've found a way to stop the men from capturing them. He would have done something better, thought quicker, fought harder, not have been so afraid. Splinter would have been smarter and saved his men. Leo buried his face in his hands. The hut was so stuffy with stale air that it was hard to think. His head hurt. His legs felt like jelly still from running - stumbling - through the jungle with Raph. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself but the air was too dense, he couldn't breathe. He was so thirsty. He was so tired. His head hurt. He tried again to take another breath but his throat closed up. The air was stolen from his lungs. The walls of the small hut felt so close, too close. He felt his face, it was awash with sweat. His jacket was constricting but he knew he needed to keep it on. It had his last name – Hamato – stitched on the front. He didn't have his dog tags, no means of identification. If they killed him his body would just be buried in some mass grave, if they even bothered to bury him. Maybe he'd be burned or just thrown in the jungle somewhere.

"Leo?"

Who would remember him? His family would. No, they would hate him. They already did hate him. Donatello refuse to talk to him, he wouldn't answer his emails or letters or even Skype him back. Mikey barely spoke to him and when he did he would just beg Leo to come home or ask him why he'd signed up in the first place.

"Leo?"

April would miss him, he knew that. But she would get on well without him. She would find some other guy who didn't decide to go to war. She would find someone else to open doors for her and take her to the movies or listened to her while she read the newspaper aloud. Some other man who wasn't too stupid to think he could play hero in some third world country would kiss her cheek and whisper sweet nothings in her ear –

"Dude! Leo!" A voice yelled close to his face. Leonardo snapped his eyes open and jerked away from the face that was inches from his nose. The bands around his chest that constructed his breathing were finally cut away letting him take a full fledged breath of air. He gulped in the stale oxygen and scooted away from Raph's worried face.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm fine."

"Like hell you are."

* * *

"If you could go back in time, where and when would you go?" Leo questioned. The sun was just about to set. Their small hut was alight with oranges and yellows. The camp or town or wherever they were was eerily silent save for the creatures that lurked in the jungle around them. It had been two days since they'd woken up in this small hut. The door had only opened once to reveal an old man with two buckets. One filled with water and the other empty. The empty one had a cloth over it.

"What's the empty one for?" Raph had asked.

Leo gave him a suffering glare. "What do you think?"

"Oh," Raph's eyes had gone wide.

"Are we playing games now?" Raph asked with a slight smile on his cracked lips. The water had been so nice even if it was dirty. But, it hadn't lasted long. Both boys chugged their share down without much thought then stared at each other for an inordinate amount of time thinking and cursing themselves for downing all of their water so quickly.

"It's either that or stare at eachother some more and I have to say, your face is getting uglier by the second."

"It's a good thing yer my best friend, Leo. 'Else I'd have ta pop you in the mouth fer callin' me ugly. And besides, yer one to talk. That ain't no shiner on the side of your face. It looks pretty awful. I think yer gonna have a few scars."

Leo shrugged, "Chicks dig scars, man."

"Does April?" Raph looked up from their game of tic-tac-toe they were playing in the dirt when Leo didn't answer back right away. Leo was biting his bottom lip while looking away from his friend. They were both quiet for a while as Leo turned back to their game.

After two more games that both ended in a draw, Raph finally asked, "When would you go back to?"

Leo didn't hesitate, "I'd go back to just before the Charlies attacked. When we were sitting in the Comm. tent."

"Why?"

"Cause everyone was still alive."

"Oh."

"And we only had seven days left." Raph nodded. Leo turned his head away to cough. This coughs were getting worse, they racked his chest making it hard to breath. They sounded wet and rattled deep in his chest. When he thought he was done hacking he turned back to Raph. It was less than a minute later when another round hit. He doubled over grabbing for the collar of his shirt to pull it away from his throat. He hacked and hacked, his throat felt like it was bleeding. Something vile crept up his throat, stinging it and making his eyes leak with tears. He jerked away from Raph and flung himself as far away from his friend as he could then promptly threw up everything that was in his stomach. The bile burned all the way up. He couldn't breathe. After he was done throwing up he noticed Raph sitting on his knees next to him, whispering close to his head and genty patting his back.

"It's okay… it's okay."

Leo sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth with the bottom of his shirt. Damn, he wished he had some water.

"Maybe my brothers were right." He croaked, Raph took his hand away. "Maybe we shouldn't be here. Maybe I shouldn't have joined." His voice cracked.

Raph took a deep breath before helping move Leo over to the other side of the hut slowly.

"No, they were wrong." He said looking Leo straight in the eye. Leo felt nauseous. "We're 'ere because if we weren't then people would keep getting hurt. Dying. We're here to protect people."

"We aren't doing a lot of protecting in here Raph. Mooch and Stockman and Holloway sure as hell aren't protecting a lot of people," Leo scowled.

Just then the door was flung open. Raph scrambled to his feel and steeled himself for whatever was about happen, whoever was about to come through. Leo tried to get up but his arms were too shaky, his body felt too weak from forcing everything out through his mouth a few minutes ago. He set a deep scowl on his face.

A man came through. He was young looking, no older than twenty-five by the looks out it. In his right hand he held an automatic rifle. Leo cursed inwardly, the rifle was one of theirs. In the man's other hand was a bucket of water. It sloshed around inside the metal tin. Leo licked his lips involuntary and was reminded of how incredibly thirsty he was once again. His tongue felt like sandpaper and his mouth tasted like something had crawled up inside of it and died.

The man smirked at the two soldiers. "Thirsty?" He taunted in perfect English. Raph looked sideways down at Leo who stared holes into the man. They wouldn't show weakness. They were still soldiers.

The man just stared right back at them. They stayed like that, all three just looking at each other for the longest time. Finally, Raph had had enough. "You know, if you stare long enough I do a trick." He held up his middle finger, "Oh! There it is."

Leo laughed thinly, the man smiled darkly, unamused. Raph put his hand down. The man dropped the bucket to the ground spilling and soaking the dirt. Leo could have cried as he saw the dirt become moist with the water they were supposed to drink.

"Opps." The man laughed then about-faced and left slamming and locking the door behind him.

Leo let his head fall against the wall, defeated. Raph sat next to him mirroring his posture. "How long do you think they'll keep us before they kill us?"

"I don't know, Raphie."

 


	3. Chapter 3

_"When the first one dies, you die too. On the inside you die with every one of your soldiers."_

When you're a kid war is just a game. Fingers are guns. Rocks are grenades. Dirt piles are embankments and makeshift trenches. The front lines are your back yard. When you get shot you do down with theatrics yelling that  _you're hit! You're hit!_  Then falling to the grass your father just mowed with flailing limbs. You thrash around on the manicured lawn until you've decide that you've bled out and stop. You stay still until you've decided you've been 'dead' long enough. After that point you jump to your feet laughing while you're friends are laughing. You continue on killing each other until your mother call you inside for dinner. It's all a game and it's all fun.

But war, it's not a game.

Something crunched near Leonardo's head pulling him from the blackness of unconsciousness. He fought tooth and nail to stay inside of it. To keep the black nothingness wrapped around him. He was confused, angry, and he knew if he left this nothingness that surrounded him it would all get worse. He heard another crunch then a groan, it sounded nearer, too near. Leo felt scared. Whatever that noise was it was too close and he still had his eyes shut. Steeling himself he forced his eyes open. He needed to be brave. But, nothing happened. He tried to open his eyes but they were stuck, too heavy. Something hard and rough was under his cheek and the side of his face. It was painful. He hurt. Everything hurt. His eyes wouldn't open.

Another groan. Leo was almost sure it had come from his mouth.

"Shh... -nardo," Someone whispered softly near his aching head. "It's okay... Okay, Leo. You're... be fine... fine." The voice was getting farther and farther away, like it was backing down a dark tunnel.

Softly, something touched his head. Leonardo still couldn't get his eyes to open. They were glued shut. Absently Leo thought of a toddler with Gorilla Glue smearing it across the rims of his eyes and pinching them shut until they dried. There was a muffled sound above him. Someone was speaking.

Leo felt himself whimper as the speaking voice gingerly moved his head so his cheek came off of the hard, rough surface. Leo felt himself cry out as a sensitive part of his head was touched maybe purposely, maybe accidentally. Fire licked down his neck, his heartbeat drummed in his head. Slowly he felt himself being placed back down on something soft, warm.

"Get some sleep," the voice commanded. It sounded familiar, comforting. But Leonardo couldn't call a face to it. His mind was too muggy, too pain filled. His head beat too loudly to concentrate. Using one last pull of energy and hope, Leo forced his eye lids to unstick. As soon as his eyes opened he was assaulted by light. His eyes felt like they were being burned through. He tried to jerk his head to the side and pull his arms up to cover his face but they refused to do his bidding. When he moved his neck more pain flared from his head. Tears brimmed his eyes and ran down as agony shot down his body.

"Leo. Blue! It's okay. It's okay! Shhh... Shhh, you're okay. You're okay." A hand came down over his eyes and another one was placed on his chest rubbing soothing circles. "Shh, Leo."

Darkness grabbed at Leo as his head fell to the side and he passed out.

* * *

This time when Leonardo came to he didn't feel as heavy, his eyelids weren't glued shut. Tentatively, Leo opened his eyes and blinked three times. There was something tall and brown an inch from his face. The closeness of whatever it was scared the teenager into jerking back.

Pain. His head drummed. Leonardo brought dirty hands up to his head trying to keep his brain from leaking out his ears.

"Morning Sleeping Beauty," came a rough voice. The voice startled Leo but he was smart enough this time not to jerk around. Instead he closed his eyes against the orange light that blanketed around him and then slowly, deliberately twisted and hoisted himself up until he was in a sitting position. The pounding in his head settled some when he let himself fall gently against the hard wall. When he stopped moving, Leonardo finally opens his eyes. It took a few moments for them to adjust but when they did Leo gasped, tears leaked from his eyes. Without thinking he jutted forward trying to get closer, needing to touch, to prove that he was really there. That he was real and not some ghost.

"R-Ra-" was all he got out before whatever was under him supporting his weight - his legs, his knees, his arms - give out and he fell to the ground, face first and eating dirt.

The figure that sat on the other side of the small hut they were in jumped to his feet, "Maybe you should go back to sleep."

Leo looked up as Raphael knelt down beside him and grabbed his waist. The red haired boy pulled gently until Leo was sitting up again then even more gently set him back against the side of the rough wall. Bits on rock dug into his back. Raph looked down into Leo's eyes as he moved his head up so he could get a better look at the boys' pupils.

Leo coughed wetly looking up at Raph, tears ran unashamed down his face. "R-Raph, I-I thought you were dead… Am... am I dead?" He had to be dead. He'd seen them shoot Raph in the head. He'd seen the man brandish his rifle and point it at Raph… didn't he? Didn't Raph get shot..?

Raphael took a long breath before sitting down next to his best friend. He bit his lip thinking about when he'd woken up seething Leo's body twisted and tangled at awkward angles at the other side of the hut. He'd panicked, jumped over to his friend already convinced that he was dead. There was so much blood around his head, too much...

But then he'd moved. He groaned. He was still alive.

"I ain't dead Leo, an' neither are you."

Leonardo took a deep breath mentally pulling himself together. He was a soldier, he needed to keep his head on straight. Leo blinked four times before the world around him came into better focus. Sitting up had helped; it cleared some of the cobwebs from his head. Looking around, Leo took in their surroundings. They both sat in a small room. It looked to be made out of the same mud and rock consistency that the locals made their small shanty-huts out of. There was one window near the top of the rocky brown wall that was big enough to light up the entire space yet too small to fit through.

 _Damn_ , Leo cursed. The hut was a circle in shape with only one door that was on the opposite side of the useless window. The door looked solid. Solid and locked.

He started, "Is the door-"

"Locked."

"Damn."

Raph sighed heavily. "The Charlie's came in a few hours ago. They just looked at us and talked to each other in Spanish, I couldn't understand them. Then they left."

"Does this means we're... What? Prisoners?"

"Guess so."

"Damn," Leo repeated again, there was nothing else to say. No other words to express.

They were silent for a few minutes, both thinking over the events that landed them here. Faintly, Leo thought he could still hear the screams of his friends. The way their guns peppered against the ground around his tent. He could still feel the fire, it licked and burned and torched every important file and piece of paper he was issued.

Dead. All dead. Dead or scattered or captured.

" _What happened to never leaving a fallen comrade?"_

" _What happened to not being a stupid idiot?"_

Sweat dripped down Leo's forehead mixing into the dried blood that had already painted his face from being hit by the butt of the Charlie's rifle. Not for the first time Leonardo felt choked by the heat. He pulled at the collar of his army camo jacket. He pulled once then twice trying to get stagnate air to rush into his clothes to help cool down his already overheated body. He pulled again on his collar then stopped when he heard nothing. There was no jungle coming from his chest. Quickly, almost frantically, he grabbed for the tags that were supposed to be hanging around his neck. When he only felt sweat slicked skin his heart sank. He had no tags. No identifying number or name. Nothing that showed his identification number or his religious preference of Protestant Non Denomination.

"They took my Dog Tags," he tells Raph letting his head fall against the side of the hut. His hand, now sweaty, also falls dejectedly to his side.

Raph nods slowly gnawing on the side of his cheek, "Mine too."

"Nothing to I.D us."

"Nope."

Again they are quiet. Something outside of the hut stirs, voices seep through as muffled and foreign. Leo doesn't hear anything he recognizes. He's fluent in Spanish – he had to be to become a Communications Specialist – but he doesn't hear anything that makes any sense. Suddenly a voice close to their door laughed. It was deep and throaty and Leo jumped slightly. Someone ran in front of the door. The sound became softer and lighter as the person running passed and got further away.

"I think we're in the middle of a village," said Raph looking down at his fingernails. His too-bright red hair stuck to his forehead.

Leo looked at his best friend, "Where are we?"

"We're in a hut," he answered eyeing Leo stupidly.

"Why are we in a hut? I always thought that POW's were caged underground," Leo huffed out a humorless laugh. "In like, dank cells with one light and dripping ceilings or something. And some guy threatening us with guns and needles and demanding to know all our secrets."

"Yeah well, looks like we just get stuck in a hut." He was quiet again, watching the door. "Heh," Raph says suddenly, then grumbles, "stuck in a hut... That rhymes."

Leo jerked his head over to look at Raph. A ghost of a smile was stretched thinly against his lips. Raph didn't look over at Leo, he stared forward and let his thin lips mold into a slightly bigger smile.

"Shut up, Hothead," Leo chuckled shaking his head slowly.

"Whatever you say Blue."

They were both silent after that, both listening to the sounds of outside. There were more voices muffled by the thick door separating them. Younger, lighter voices yelled playfully back and forth to one another. Their sounds wafted through the small open window.

"Pasa la pelota! Ven a pasar! ¡Pásalo!"

"You speak Spanish, right?" asked Raph after listening to the children's voices for a while. Leo nodded, staring at the far wall listening to the children and imagining what they looked like by the way they spoke. He ran his tongue over his lips, he was thirsty. A bead of sweat dripped onto his tongue. It tasted dirty and salty.

"Vamos, su mi turno para jugar con la pelota! Se acabó para siempre ya!"

"Come on, it's my turn to play with the ball… You've had it forever already." Leo translated to Raph. He slimed slightly at the wine in the boys' voice. He sounded just like Mikey...

There was a commotion, the sound of rustling and shoving. Something hit the dirt then another something. More sounds of scuffling and then there was a roar of children yelling and egging on. One voice was distinctly older sounding than the others. It yelled over the other children forcefully. But it sounded more brotherly commanding than fatherly.

"Vale, vale. Eso es suficiente Hector. Basta usted loco!"

Raph looked to Leo expectedly.

Leo let the words translate in his head then roll off his tongue without really thinking, just letting his mind work. "He's just telling them to break it up."

Leonardo's heart sank as he listened to the older boy speak again to the others. He was reminded of himself whenever Don or Mikey started getting into a fight over something stupid and he had to step in and break it up.

"Hey Blue?"

Leo looked over to Raph, "Yeah Raphie?"

"Why did your dad always sign  _Splinter_  at the end of his letters to you?"

Leo looked at him, dumbstruck, "How did you-"

You left an email open a while ago on you're iPad an I saw it." He admitted almost guiltily. "Sorry, I was board. It was when you went out for a walk through with Captain Bennison ."

Leo nodded remembering going out on a jungle mission with Captain Bennison and the rest of his team a few weeks ago. They needed a communications specialist to relay messages back to command while they scouted a possible Charlie outpost. Stockman had been among them complaining per usual about the heat and how he should have become a scientist instead of a soldier. At that time Leonardo had wished the man had become a scientist as well just to save him the headache of having to listen to him bitch and moan about the heat and the weight of their packs and LAW rifles.

Leo licked his dry lips with his even drier tongue. He'd never really told anyone about his father's nickname, no one had really ever asked actually. But, Leo figured, there was really nothing else left to do in this small, hot hut other than talk.

"It's just an old nickname of his. Kind of a long story."

Raph raised an eyebrow at him. "We got plenty of time."

Leo shuttered then nodded his head slowly. "His got the nickname in Vietnam. He was drafted but he said that he would've joined anyway even if he didn't get chosen. He was a paratrooper. Anyway, so him and about ten others were ordered to jump down into this hill in Khe Sanh. The Marines there were having trouble keeping the hill and they asked for backup."

"Those Devil Dogs needed backup? No way," Raph chuckled remembering the Marines who had come through their camp a few months ago all chiseled and growling with thick arms and tattoos.

"Yeah," Leo smiled slightly. "So my dad and his team jumped near the hill and we about there when Viets started shooting at 'em from the ground. They killed his buddy Yoshi right away. Dad said a bullet went right through his forehead... Yoshi was dad's best friend, he used to tell us stories about him all the time... Anyway, they shot through his parashoot and he free fell the rest of the way to the ground. He hit a tree going fifty miles an hour and it snapped his leg in half. Almost tore his arm off too. A big splinter from the tree went right throw his hand. When the Marines finally found him he had taken up position in a ditch at the bottom of the hill with the three others who had survived in a ditch at the bottom of the hill. He had set his leg using wood from the tree he'd demolished."

"So that's how he got his name?"

"Yeah." Leo coughed, his head swam. It was so hot. "He had to keep that splinter of wood in his hand for three days while they waited to be rescued. He knew if he had taken it out he would've bled to death."

Raph rearranged and slid until he was laying down, his bright red head close to Leo's thigh. "Sounds like a badass."

Leo didn't say anything. He couldn't. He felt ashamed talking about his father. He knew, deep inside that if his father had been here he could've found a way to stop the men from capturing them. He would have done something better, thought quicker, fought harder, not have been so afraid. Splinter would have been smarter and saved his men. Leo buried his face in his hands. The hut was so stuffy with stale air that it was hard to think. His head hurt. His legs felt like jelly still from running - stumbling - through the jungle with Raph. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself but the air was too dense, he couldn't breathe. He was so thirsty. He was so tired. His head hurt. He tried again to take another breath but his throat closed up. The air was stolen from his lungs. The walls of the small hut felt so close, too close. He felt his face, it was awash with sweat. His jacket was constricting but he knew he needed to keep it on. It had his last name – Hamato – stitched on the front. He didn't have his dog tags, no means of identification. If they killed him his body would just be buried in some mass grave, if they even bothered to bury him. Maybe he'd be burned or just thrown in the jungle somewhere.

"Leo?"

Who would remember him? His family would. No, they would hate him. They already did hate him. Donatello refuse to talk to him, he wouldn't answer his emails or letters or even Skype him back. Mikey barely spoke to him and when he did he would just beg Leo to come home or ask him why he'd signed up in the first place.

"Leo?"

April would miss him, he knew that. But she would get on well without him. She would find some other guy who didn't decide to go to war. She would find someone else to open doors for her and take her to the movies or listened to her while she read the newspaper aloud. Some other man who wasn't too stupid to think he could play hero in some third world country would kiss her cheek and whisper sweet nothings in her ear –

"Dude! Leo!" A voice yelled close to his face. Leonardo snapped his eyes open and jerked away from the face that was inches from his nose. The bands around his chest that constructed his breathing were finally cut away letting him take a full fledged breath of air. He gulped in the stale oxygen and scooted away from Raph's worried face.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm fine."

"Like hell you are."

* * *

"If you could go back in time, where and when would you go?" Leo questioned. The sun was just about to set. Their small hut was alight with oranges and yellows. The camp or town or wherever they were was eerily silent save for the creatures that lurked in the jungle around them. It had been two days since they'd woken up in this small hut. The door had only opened once to reveal an old man with two buckets. One filled with water and the other empty. The empty one had a cloth over it.

"What's the empty one for?" Raph had asked.

Leo gave him a suffering glare. "What do you think?"

"Oh," Raph's eyes had gone wide.

"Are we playing games now?" Raph asked with a slight smile on his cracked lips. The water had been so nice even if it was dirty. But, it hadn't lasted long. Both boys chugged their share down without much thought then stared at each other for an inordinate amount of time thinking and cursing themselves for downing all of their water so quickly.

"It's either that or stare at eachother some more and I have to say, your face is getting uglier by the second."

"It's a good thing yer my best friend, Leo. 'Else I'd have ta pop you in the mouth fer callin' me ugly. And besides, yer one to talk. That ain't no shiner on the side of your face. It looks pretty awful. I think yer gonna have a few scars."

Leo shrugged, "Chicks dig scars, man."

"Does April?" Raph looked up from their game of tic-tac-toe they were playing in the dirt when Leo didn't answer back right away. Leo was biting his bottom lip while looking away from his friend. They were both quiet for a while as Leo turned back to their game.

After two more games that both ended in a draw, Raph finally asked, "When would you go back to?"

Leo didn't hesitate, "I'd go back to just before the Charlies attacked. When we were sitting in the Comm. tent."

"Why?"

"Cause everyone was still alive."

"Oh."

"And we only had seven days left." Raph nodded. Leo turned his head away to cough. This coughs were getting worse, they racked his chest making it hard to breath. They sounded wet and rattled deep in his chest. When he thought he was done hacking he turned back to Raph. It was less than a minute later when another round hit. He doubled over grabbing for the collar of his shirt to pull it away from his throat. He hacked and hacked, his throat felt like it was bleeding. Something vile crept up his throat, stinging it and making his eyes leak with tears. He jerked away from Raph and flung himself as far away from his friend as he could then promptly threw up everything that was in his stomach. The bile burned all the way up. He couldn't breathe. After he was done throwing up he noticed Raph sitting on his knees next to him, whispering close to his head and genty patting his back.

"It's okay… it's okay."

Leo sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth with the bottom of his shirt. Damn, he wished he had some water.

"Maybe my brothers were right." He croaked, Raph took his hand away. "Maybe we shouldn't be here. Maybe I shouldn't have joined." His voice cracked.

Raph took a deep breath before helping move Leo over to the other side of the hut slowly.

"No, they were wrong." He said looking Leo straight in the eye. Leo felt nauseous. "We're 'ere because if we weren't then people would keep getting hurt. Dying. We're here to protect people."

"We aren't doing a lot of protecting in here Raph. Mooch and Stockman and Holloway sure as hell aren't protecting a lot of people," Leo scowled.

Just then the door was flung open. Raph scrambled to his feel and steeled himself for whatever was about happen, whoever was about to come through. Leo tried to get up but his arms were too shaky, his body felt too weak from forcing everything out through his mouth a few minutes ago. He set a deep scowl on his face.

A man came through. He was young looking, no older than twenty-five by the looks out it. In his right hand he held an automatic rifle. Leo cursed inwardly, the rifle was one of theirs. In the man's other hand was a bucket of water. It sloshed around inside the metal tin. Leo licked his lips involuntary and was reminded of how incredibly thirsty he was once again. His tongue felt like sandpaper and his mouth tasted like something had crawled up inside of it and died.

The man smirked at the two soldiers. "Thirsty?" He taunted in perfect English. Raph looked sideways down at Leo who stared holes into the man. They wouldn't show weakness. They were still soldiers.

The man just stared right back at them. They stayed like that, all three just looking at each other for the longest time. Finally, Raph had had enough. "You know, if you stare long enough I do a trick." He held up his middle finger, "Oh! There it is."

Leo laughed thinly, the man smiled darkly, unamused. Raph put his hand down. The man dropped the bucket to the ground spilling and soaking the dirt. Leo could have cried as he saw the dirt become moist with the water they were supposed to drink.

"Opps." The man laughed then about-faced and left slamming and locking the door behind him.

Leo let his head fall against the wall, defeated. Raph sat next to him mirroring his posture. "How long do you think they'll keep us before they kill us?"

"I don't know, Raphie."


	4. Chapter 4

" _We discovered in that depressing, hellish place where death was our constant companion that we loved each other. We killed for each other, we died for each other and we wept for each other. And in time we came to love each other as brothers."_

_\- General Hal Moore_

Three weeks. Three awful weeks of impossible heat, warm water, stale bread and having to listen to Leonardo's wet coughs and rattling chest. Three weeks of their captors asking nothing of them. The men would bang on their door, threaten them, and occasionally enter the hut with guns high and voices loud to scare them. Sometimes, they would take Raphael out of the hut kicking and cursing. They'd take him, beat him, never ask any questions then return him back to Leo bloodied and bruised in a heap that Leo tried to patch back together using scraps that was their clothing. Their captors never took Leo and for that, Raph was relieved. He knew Leonardo wouldn't survive a round of them beating on him. He figured the men had at least some sort of heart buried under all their filthy bodies. They knew a sick and dying man when they saw one.

It had been three weeks and two days since the Charlie's had attacked their base and murdered their friends, Raph was keeping a tally on the wall next to his head. Each time the sun rose he would make a mark using one of the small rocks that littered the ground they slept on. Leo was laying on his side with his legs scrunched up almost to his chest trying to control his breathing. It hurt to lay on his back because of the pressure it put on his chest. Raph sat next to Leo with a rock in his hand. With a flick of his wrist he threw the rock at the far wall, it bounced off and rolled a few feet back to him. He reached for it, picked it up and threw it again. The rock hit a less compacted part of the wall this time and thudded to the ground. Raph cursed before looking around to find another rock to start throwing.

"When my dad came home from Vietnam." Raph jumped at the sound of Leo's voice. It was shaky and thick. Leo cleared his throat still staring at the far wall where Raph's last rock had landed. "Someone spit on him in the airport."

Raph snapped his head over to Leo, "Whoa, man, you don't – "

"They spit on him even though he'd saved some of his men. They spit on him and those people didn't even know that he had watched Yoshi get shot through the head. He'd seen his best friend murdered right beside him and they spit on him when he came home." Disgust laid thick into Leo''s voice, his brows were furrowed angrily outlining his red bloodshot eyes.

"Do… do you think people will do that to us if we get home?" The raw emotion in Leo's eyes made Raph choke on his words. The eyes that stared up at him weren't the eyes of the hard, fearless soldier he'd met at boot camp but the person he'd gotten to know, the one he'd become friends with. They were a bit cloudy from the sickness but clear in all the right places. It broke Raph's heart.

" _When_  we make it home, we'll get a hero's welcome," he tried to make his voice sound believable. He tried to put as much hope into his words as he could. Leo nodded slowly then, in a voice so quiet that Raph had to lean down to hear he said tentatively, "Do you think our families have gotten the news yet?"

Raph shrugged, not particularly wanting to think about home. He didn't want to think about his brother answering the door to uniformed men baring the news that he was missing. He didn't want to think about Molly crying when she found out he might not be coming home, that he was lost somewhere in some foreign land filled with people wanting to kill him. He didn't want to think of his nice warm bed or cold water or soft pillows. It hurt to think about those things.

"I don't know, Blue," he finally answered truthfully.

Outside of the hut there was yelling, harsh words flung from different mouths. None of them sounded familiar to Raph. One voice boomed over the rest silencing them for a few minutes before speaking again. Raph looked down to Leo who had his eyes closed in either exhaustion or concentration, he wasn't sure.

"They're scared. The elders think it's bad luck to keep us inside the village. They think our troops are close and they'll be attacked."

Hope swelled inside Raph's chest. "Damn right they should be scared."

"What the  _hell_!" Leo's terrified scream made Raph jerk violently and try to grab for the gun that wasn't by his side. Leo continued to struggle letting out curse words and running his hands desperately over his torso. Raph looked around helplessly not sure of what was happening.

"What, what, what?" He tried to make himself heard over Leo's voice. Mud, dirt and rocks were flung everywhere as Leo kicked and squirmed and yelled. He tore at his clothing, his bootless feet leaked blood from where rocks cut into the sides and bottoms. He rolled over until he was practically on top of Raph's legs and let out another shriek that cut into Raph's ear so hard his eyes watered. Raph grabbed at his friend trying in vain to stop him before he hurt himself.

 _This is it_ , he thought to himself.  _Leo's finally gone bat shit crazy._

Finally, after grabbing something from inside his once grey shirt and throwing it to the other side of the hut Leo immediately calmed down. He sat with a red eyes, chest heaving and sweat dripping down his already slicked face. His breaths sounded rough and ratty. Raph looked around trying to see what Leo had seen, worried that there was some new threat or that his friend was just simply going crazy.

"What the fuck was that!?" He demanded loudly making Leo jump. Leo took more hurried breaths, his eyes were big and clear. He ran dirty fingers through his already greasy hair a few times before he was finally calmed down enough to stutter out an answer.

"Sp-spider. The size of a-a-a softball!"

Raphael stared at Leonardo, his own chest still heaving from panic. He was on his knees looking straight at his friend with a dumbfounded look plastered on his face.

"A... Spider?" He said the word slowly, not believing that after all they'd been through, all that they had seen that Leo could have freaked out so badly from a stupid little spider.

Leo put his hands up to show the size. "The size of a softball," he alliterated sternly.

A smiled formed across Raph's cheeks as he slowed his breathing. A chuckle escaped his lips softly. Another soon followed and then another until he couldn't even hold himself up any longer. He grabbed at his stomach while another hand went to the ground to keep from falling over.

"Dude," he opened his mouth but giggles over took him again. "Dude you... you scared the shit out of me!"

Leo looked at the red head in confusion and annoyance. It had truly been a large spider that had decided to take up residence on his chest then burrow under his shirt. He kept staring at his friend until the other boy let out a loud shriek of laughter. He glared at the red head, "Are you looking at this face? Do I look amused?"

"Leo!" Raph practically yelled grabbing for his sides and cackling with more laughter. Unwillingly, a smile formed on Leo's face. Now that he didn't have the mother of all spiders crawling inside his shirt he supposed he could see how this could be a funny situation.

"Bro, you-you," Raph couldn't get out any words. "You're like a black belt in every karate thing ever! I saw you run into a burning compound to save a Code sheet you dropped. How the hell can you be afraid of spiders?!"

Leo chuckled some more letting himself catch his breath and laying his head back on the ground. Now that he wasn't defending himself from Godzilla-Spider he could feel exhaustion seeping back into his bones. His head felt light making his stomach feel nauseous. He let out a few more laughs before grumbling, "It was a substantially large spider with fangs and teeth and a want to suck my blood and poison me." Which only made Raph laugh louder and completely crumble to his side.

"Of all the people who I could have been trapped in a cell with," Leo mumbled shifting his shoulders and scratching at his chest where he could swear a spider still sat.

"God, Leo. That was some funny shit." Raph said after managing to pull himself together. Something hard and loud smashed into the door to their prison cell.

"Quiet in there!" A thickly accented voice shouted from outside the door.

The smile from Raph's face melted away in a flash. He held up his hand in a lewd gesture, "Oh yeah? Suck my -"

"Raph, how about you not finish that sentence, okay?" Leo suggested wiping sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his soiled shirt. Raph shook his head but lowered his hand.

"It ain't nothin' you didn't hear in boot camp, Your Highness," Raph smirked. He shifted until he was once again sitting down against the wall. He lightly dusted himself off being mindful of the bruises that painted his arms and torso.

"Boot camp," Leo huffed out a sarcastic laugh. "That was fun."

Leonardo knew that he was physically fit. He understood how his body worked and what his limits were or at least he thought he did. The mandatory treks and forced marches were relatively easy until they were ordered to carry seventy pound packs and hike up hill for miles. Put that with little sleep and instructors constantly in his face and the training had been difficult. Ever since the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq the United States Army had upped the qualifications for new recruits making it so only the best went on to become true soldiers. Whereas before one only had to go through basic to become a private and ship out, now every man and woman were forced through a completely new curriculum being tested on not only physicality but also mental awareness and strength. Leonardo had never been pushed so hard in his life. He'd broken one of his toes three weeks in and was told to either drop out or have it wrapped and continue on – which he did. The medic that had wrapped his toe had laughed and told him he should have just dropped and come back later when he was healed. But, Leo really didn't have any place to go and wait for another three months until another boot camp was scheduled. His brothers weren't speaking to him, April had only sent a few letters that he had gotten when they were allowed mail, even his father hadn't said much when they'd spoken on the phone. He knew his family didn't really hate him, they were family after all, but they were angry. Angry that he'd joined to fight a war that over sixty percent of the American people thought they didn't even need to be a part of in the first place. He couldn't go home to see the "Get Our Troops Out Of There" and "Hell No, We Won't Go" posters he was sure Don had made. Or the "Peace" signs Mikey had put together.

"Awe shit," Raph shook his head snickering, interrupting Leo's thoughts. "I fucking hated you in boot camp."

"Yeah well, I didn't think too highly of you either, Hot Head." Leo smiled, remembering their first encounter during camp two weeks after he'd broken his toe and a day before Mikey had actually called him for the first time. The call hadn't gone well and ended up being the only one he received from either brothers for the entirety of the nine week boot camp.

"We all called you Fearless back then, remember? Peterson and Ghetty and Master Sergeant Hann always called you that." Raph let a smirk slip across his face, aggravating his split lip. Leo grabbed a small piece of mud that had cracked away from the hut. He flung it over his head attempting to at least get in the vicinity of Raphael's body. It was a sorry excuse for a throw and missed completely – stopping short at Raph's bare feet – but the red head still laughed and grumbled.

Leo shifted, trying to get more comfortable on the ground. A cough rumbled in his chest. He coughed once, twice, took a breath that sounded too wet then smiled and looked at the locked door to their prison. "I'm pretty sure you had some pretty great nicknames back in basic. I remember one of them having to do with a certain part of the male genitalia and your face." Leo laughed as the same bit of wall hit his shoulder lightly.

"Do ya remember when Doc Myers had to patch us up after we got into a fight in the fourth week?" Raph looked over at Leo. "He was so pissed I thought he'd report us."

"We would have deserved it," Leo shrugged lazily flipping over on his side to play with the dirt. "It was my command you compromised. I was the TL."

"Team Leader my ass, you made a stupid decision and I voiced my opinion," grumbled Raph, still feeling the need to be defensive even after all this time.

Leo huffed, "It was a tactical and logical decision that was a hell of a lot less risky than your plan." He turned back over until he was facing Raph. "And besides, when you were the TL I got you back." He tried to make a joke of it but stopped short when he saw his friend's face fall. A frown deepened against Raph's jaw, his eyes darkened. Old shame seeped into Raphael as he thought about that one night near the week four of boot camp.

* * *

Officially the training exercise was call the SAQ or  _Squad Assault Course_  but all of the soldiers always called it for what it truly was; the  _Reality Check_. It was a mission set at night, mandatory for all soldiers in order move on in their training. Each and every soldier was ordered to lead a team of six to nine through an enemy compound that had been constructed to mirror exactly that of the compounds soldiers in Afghanistan had to infiltrate with high dried mud walls, hallways blocked by debris and staggered with rooms lining both sides of every hallway. The fake compound was about the size of a warehouse and was built outside in the middle of what used to be a corn field a few miles from the main training base. It was named after some long, hard-to-pronounce Iraqi general who was killed during a raid in the middle of Operation Enduring Freedom but, everyone just called it Fort Lost-In-Field on account of it being surrounded by nothing and placed right outside of absolute nowhere. Other than the stationary lights strategically placed around the compound it was dark. The purpose of the course was to completely surround the soldiers in a real life situation to see what they would do under distress with bullets flying and minimal visibility. After each round the Team Leaders would be graded and would either pass and move on or fail and have to take it again or be forced to drop out of the training completely.

Each soldier was outfitted in their regular combat gear but given a fake gun and a thin black vest to put on over their jackets. This was only a training mission so none of the M-16's were real – shooting lasers instead of bullets – but they still made the same  _pop, pop, pop_ sound as the real guns did. If a soldier or an instructor playing the part of an Insurgent was hit their vest would show a red light instead of the faint green that it gave off. The small green LED lights on their vest were meant to show that they were alive, yellow lights meant wounded and red lights meant dead. Any dead soldiers on the team meant an automatic failure for the team leader.

Raphael ran a gloved hand over his forehead then checked his fake M-16 one more time before turning from the dark compound and back to the men he was ordered to lead. This was his mission. All of the soldiers were still recruits since they were in boot camp but for this exercise the team leader was promoted to the rank of sergeant in order to stop any confusion about who was in charge of this round. Raph looked over all six of his men and grit his teeth at the last member of his team.

 _Leonardo Hamato_ , he sneered in his head angrily.  _They just_ had _to put this fucking guy in my squad._

It was no secret, the disdain Raphael held for Hamato. The boy who stood before Raph had been the bane of his existence ever since he'd beaten him in a hand to hand combat game three weeks ago. They had been paired by chance by the point of the Drill Sergeants finger as every man in the company was circled around a ring. The Drill Sergeants said that it was a game to show how tough you were; fighting an equally matched opponent, but everyone knew it was just a way to show off how badass each soldier was to the rest.

Raph had smiled, ready to beat the guy who was always passing him in their runs and smirking at him when he did. The fight felt long but in reality it had probably only taken a few minutes. It ended with Raph flat on his back and a face so red with anger he was sputtering. He wasn't actually hurt, of course they were wearing protective gear and it was just training, but his pride was damaged. Since then Raphael's bruised ego had never recovered from the way this brown haired, barley muscled, pale skinned guy had kicked his ass. Raph was supposed to be the best fighter, everyone knew that. The other recruits knew it. The instructors knew it. Hell, even the cooks probably knew it. Raphael was tall, thick, with broad shoulders and strong. But this guy had taken him down, in front of everybody, like it was nothing! It had angered the hot head so much that it was almost comical. His face turning red, his mouth sputtering, the murderous gleam in his eyes as he'd gotten back up to charge the guy again only to be ordered to stop by the instructors.

Raph shook his head and tried to focus on his mission. He had been tasked with the goal of leading a team of six, including himself, into a guarded compound, taking out the insurgents and leaving without any casualties. That's it. He didn't have to find anything or anyone, he didn't have to secure the compound, he didn't even have to take someone out. Just go through the building. It sounded like a drag but it was orders.

"Let's go boys," his said evenly, his New York City accent coming in thick. He pulled down his night vision goggles and took a step, leading his men into the compound.

Everything had been going smoothly; his team remembered their training and fell into silent step behind one another. When they were half way through the compound the shooting started.  _Pop, pop, pop._  But even under fire Raphael kept a semi-cool head on his shoulders. He'd been trained for this, he knew what to do. Calmly but forcefully he communicated with his men to lead them through and back outside the compound under fire from the instructors dressed as the enemy. When they'd exited the hot area Raphael took a breath of relief. He'd gotten all of his men – his  _team_  – to safely. Or so he'd thought.

Rounding the corner, Master Sergeant Robert Hann marched swiftly over to him. The flood lights overhead the compound turned on, showering the men with light. Raph and his team took off their night vision goggles and slung their fake rifles across their backs. Raph had just finished pocketing a map of the compound when Master Sergeant Hann came into his personal space. The man, with a shaved head and red face with hard eyes put his mouth right next to Raph's ear. The boy tightened his muscles expecting his drill instructor to scream in his face just like he had been doing for the past five weeks. He was surprised when the man started to speak in a low tone.

"Count your men Private Jones."

Raphael's heart sank, his eyes snapped over to the men behind him, all standing in perfect formation. Shoulders back, knees slightly apart, hands collected at the small of their backs and staring straight ahead. They looked like the perfect batch of toy soldiers.

 _One, two, three_ , Raph counted silently.

"Out loud, Private!" the drill instructor suddenly yelled. Raph looked at the man before wetting his lips; his heart had already sunk into the deepest pit of his stomach. It took a minute for his eyes to see what his brain had already been able to comprehend; he was a man down.

"One, two, three, four – "

"Say their names out loud, soldier, so that I know you know who you lost." Master Sergeant Hann barked. All around the compound instructors and soldiers who were playing the part of the enemy walked out. All ignored him and his team.

"Private Joe Peterson, Private Sam Nelson, Private Jose Ramirez," he counted off the men in his line until he came to the end and stopped. Raph looked at the empty space at the end of the row. He swallowed thickly, he knew that not only had he failed this exercise and mission, he'd also lost a soldier.

"Who. Are. You. Missing?" the Master Sergeant paused calmly at every word to let the gravity of the situation sink into Raphael's head.

"Private Leonardo Hamato, sir."

Hann walked over to Raphael, his voice low. It was almost worse than the screaming. "What would you like to do now, Jones?"

Raph didn't look at his instructor; he stared down at the empty space where one of his teammates should have been standing. "I am going to go back inside the compound to save my soldier because you never leave a fallen comrade, Drill Sergeant."

Hann came right into Raph's face again, "What if your soldier is already dead?"

"Then I will retrieve his body," he answered, eyes hard and mouth pinched into a line of determination. Even though this was just a drill it still felt real. He still felt like he had let his team down. One of its members had 'died'.

"Go get him," ordered Hann. Raph called his men together, dispatched quick orders then formed them into position to re-enter the compound from the back.

Going back into the compound made of dirt with the flood lights on was different than during the actual exercise. It all looked different. With the lights on the compound looked fake and breachable. It made Raph feel like this really was a training mission and not real life. But it didn't do a lot for the knot in his stomach or the tension headache pounding in his skull. He still had to treat this as a real mission, though, so he quickly ordered his men out to different rooms to check for his lost soldier. Their guns were still loaded with fake ammo and all the men still walked swiftly but carefully.

"Found him sir!" called Private Nelson from a few rooms away. Raph turned smartly on his heel, practically about-facing from the room he had been scowering and toed it quickly to a small room on the other side of the hall. He walked in to find Nelson and Richardson kneeling down next to Leonardo Hamato. Hamato was lying on his back against the wall, eyes closed and breathing. The vest he wore shown a red light directly over his chest. Raph opened his mouth to tell Hamato – the one guy in the entire company of recruits who Raph had hated with every fiber of his being for the last five weeks – to get up, that the simulation was over, but he was cut off by an Instructor.

"Private Hamato is dead, you will treat him as such Team Leader."

"Roger, Drill Sergeant," said Raphael. If he voice shook slightly, no one called him on it.

Raphael tried to call forth the anger that had been powering him on the last few weeks. He'd tried to force it to rush through his veins and consume him with annoyance and irritation as it had every time this strangely-named, no-good, ju-jitsu-mastering mother fucker had bested him in a course or an inspection or a run. He had felt so much anger because this guy beat him at almost everything! Only now, staring down at Hamato, Raphael felt empty. Hamato – or, Leonardo, he guesses he should use his first name now since he's the one who got him killed – lay still on the ground Raph felt nothing but guilt and shame. Carefully, he bent down to pick up the 'dead' boy. He secured him over his head in a fireman's carry before ordering his surviving men to guide them out of the compound. When they'd exited, all sullen faced and eyes down turned in exhaustion and shame, Hann was still waiting for them. Raph set Leo down gently then stood in line with his men facing Hann.

Hann stared at them for a long moment. He looked each soldier in the eyes then looked down at Leo who was still 'dead'.

"So," he finally said after letting the silence stretch on for too long. "Who is going to write to Hamato's family and tell them their son was killed in action?"

No one spoke up. They were silent. Over head the moon was just barely visible through the clouds in the night sky.

"No one? Not one person will write to this man's mother and tell her her son was killed because his squad leader didn't check to make sure all of his fucking men were behind him when he left the hot zone?" If it was possible, Raph's heart sank deeper. He was sure he was going to throw up.

"Hamato, on your feet," ordered Hann after more intense silence. Leonardo opened his eyes and picked himself off of the ground. He immediately crossed his arms over the small of his back and squared his shoulders – another perfect soldier.

"Look at this right now, gents," said Hann. "You won't see this in the field. You won't see a dead man miraculously open his eyes and stand up."

The men stared straight ahead. Raph bit the side of his cheek trying to squelch down his shame. He'd lost friends before – not that Leonardo was even a real friend, he was just a fellow recruit – but none of his friends had ever died because of him. Never been killed because of his stupidity. He lived in the Bronx of New York where everyone, it seemed, had gang affiliations in his neighborhood and everyone had known someone who'd died. Raph, of course, would never admit to being a part of any gang. More from the fact that if his brother Casey or Miss Molly ever found out he was in a gang they would skin him alive. Casey had an honest job working at the mechanic shop and Miss Molly was an older woman who had taken care of them since their dad was killed and mom walked out. Raph couldn't care less if the police found out, he would do some jail time for robbing a bank or holding up a store, but he didn't think he could handle Casey's angry glare or Molly's disappointed face. Gangs had been a sore subject in the Jones house since the day Marty Jones was found in a back ally with three shots to the chest and one through the head. Whoever, and Raph was pretty sure he knew who, it was that wanted the man dead made sure that he was dead. Raph barely remembered his father but what he could remember was his fiery red hair and the gun he always kept hidden in the back of his sweatpants.

"Recruit!" someone screamed in Raph's face making him jump. He shook his head slightly then cleared his throat. "Sir."

Hann shook his head before walking back over to Leonardo. "Back in line," he ordered. Leo nodded once. With a "yes, sir" escaping his lips before going to stand at the end of the line next to Raphael. Raph half expected the boy to make some sarcastic comment under his breath about his stupidity, about how he let him die, but he surprised when Leo said nothing.

"Look to your right," Hann ordered. The men looked to their rights Raph stared at the back of Private Nick Lee's head. "Now look to your left." Raph turned his head and came face to face with Leonardo. Leo's face, Raph noticed, was white and covered in sweat. Dirt outlined the creases of his brow. "That is who you are fighting for." Hann continued. Raph swallowed thickly.

"You are not fighting for freedom, you are not fighting for liberty. You are not fighting for yourself or for the president of the United States of America. Out there, where there are men who want to kill you, people who hate you and want you dead… you are fighting for each other. You are fighting for your battle buddy. Your battle buddy will always be there for you and you best be damn sure you are always there for your battle buddy."

Hann stood for a few moments longer letting his speech sink into the men. In the distance the sound of yelling could be heard from other instructors correcting their recruits.

* * *

Raphael looked over at Leonardo as he thought about that day. The day Hann had made them battle buddies for the duration of boot camp. In retrospect it was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. He liked the idea of having a guy be there for him, someone to guard his back. In the Bronx he had friends but no one close enough or who he trusted enough not to turn him into the police at the drop of a hat or a reward. In the end, it didn't matter that Leo got bossy and had a martyr complex the size of the freaking empire state building. It didn't matter that Leo had a heart too big and was filled with too much courage. What mattered was that the brown haired boy had his back, and Raph had his. Raph had even learned some things about Leo that he never told anyone else. There really wasn't anything else to do on fifteen mile forced marches than talk to their battle buddies.

In the course of two weeks Raph had learned that Leo's mother was killed in a fire when he was five. He had two younger brothers who had refused to talk to him because he'd decided to join the army. He'd learned that Leo, even though he didn't look all that built, actually was a black belt in karate and ju-jet-zu, or something like that, because his father owned a dojo.

"If you keep looking at me like that I might have to punch you, Hot Head," Leo smiled up at the red head from where he still lay sprawled out on the ground. Raph lightly kicked him after telling him to stuff it. They were both silent for a few minutes. Raph bit his lip not being able to forget about what had happened during boot camp. He looked down at his dirty hands and bit at the inside of his cheeks harder.

"I let you die in that compound during our training, Leo." He murmured quietly refusing to look up.

Taking a deep breath Leo shook his head, "No, you didn't Raph."

Immediately Raph's head shot up, annoyance washed through him. "Yes! I did. I turned my back and I didn't count my men. None of us looked back to make sure you were there."

Now Leo was becoming annoyed. He felt like shit, it was way too hot in this hut and what air they did have was stale and tasted like dirt on his tongue. "It really doesn't matter."

"Yes it does! I let you die!" Raph growled trying to get Leo to understand how haunted he was.

"Look Raph, it doesn't matter!"

"Leo – "

"But if it did matter I'd tell you that I got tapped before the mission began. They told me when is get hit and where I should fall when I did." Leo admitted.

Raph looked a him with big eyes, "You got tapped?"

"Yeah. It was a training exercise man, they had to do it. They do it to everyone at some point during training. It's just one of the lessons."

"One of the lessons?"

"The lesson that people are going to die. Everyone is going to lose a soldier, a friend, to something and sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it." In his head Raph could hear the sounds of men screaming and men dying. He could hear the pepper of gunfire and smell the smoke from the burning Communications tent. He could see Mooch being thrown to the side like a life sized rag doll. He could hear Stockman yelling desperately into his radio for backup that would never come. He could see the look in Hollywood's eyes right before a bullet made a hole in the side of his face. People were going to die, he'd known that. This was war and with war came death. But knowing there would be death and seeing it were two entirely different things.

Raph lay his head back against the side of the hut moving until he reached the divot the back of his head had made in the hard dirt. Sweat dripped from his forehead and ran into the creases of his eyes burning them with their salt. He took one last glance down at Leo only to find that the other boy was already asleep. He listened for a few minutes to hear him breath, to hear the rattle in his chest that had been getting more and more prominent in the last few days. Taking a deep breath and trying to stifle his worry, Raph lay back and closed his eyes.

From outside the hut a pepper of gunfire popped a ways away but Raph thought nothing of it. Gunfire was like police sirens back in the Bronx, they happen all the time so you just get used to them. Hurried and heavy feet ran past the side of the hut the same time as yelling voices sounded on the other side. Raph couldn't understand the voices or hear what they were saying so he elected to ignore them and grumble under his breath.

Without warning the door to their hut was flung open so violently it smashed against the side and flung chunks of dirt in all directions. Raph jumped, his fists clenched and jaw set. Leo opened his bleary eyes, exhaustion and confusion clearly outlined in his dilated pupils. Raph angled himself so he had one hand on his friend's shoulder. He was ready to protect and fight back if he had to. The man who had barged in was one the boys hadn't seen much of. They'd named him Ugly because of the strange was his face was shaped. Leo thought that it was because he'd been bashed in the head when he was younger. The other men who had frequented their little prison were Tweetle-Dee and Tweetle-Dumbass, but there were nowhere to be found.

"On feet!" Ugly yelled pointing his gun at the middle of Raph's chest and sputtering in broken English. Raph stared at the man who was covered in a firm layer of dirt and had a smattering of blood on the side of his face near his temple. The red-orange sun silhouetted him from behind and with the door open the voices turned from muffled to yelling making Raph wince.

"Now!" Ugly ordered bringing his gun up and putting his finger on the trigger when neither of the boys moved.

Hands shooting up Raph mumbled, "Okay, okay, okay."

He slowly got to his feet feeling all of his sore muscles and bruised skin. Outside the popping of guns grew louder making Ugly's face whiter. Leo licked his lips and coughed before getting up into a sitting position. He gently put one foot under himself and grabbed at the wall for support. As soon as he was on his feet the world turned on its side, his vision blurred, bile shot up from his stomach burning his throat. He stood for a second longer before his legs finally gave out on him and he buckled. Raph, seeing his friend's wobbling knees had his arms out just in time to attempt to catch him before he hit the ground. Together they both fell to the rocks and dirt with a grunt and a curse on Raph's part.

Ugly yelled something in Spanish then spit before turning around to look outside the hut where yelling voices had turned into screaming men and woman. Not far away a child shrieked and cried desperately. The ground shook as something – a mortar, an AK, a grenade, Leo wasn't sure – hit the ground. The outside world seemed to be in chaos. Turning back to his prisoners the man leveled his gun, "Get up you filth of American!"

With another grunt Leo tried to regain his footing but again his bare and bloody feet just wouldn't hold his weight. "Raph. Raph, I can't get up."

The ground shook again, bits of the ceiling fell down on the three men as rocks were kicked up and dust made its way into the hut. Leo's heart beat fast in panic. If he couldn't move he had no doubt this man would shoot him or Raphael and leave them to die in whatever was shooting at the village.

"Up, up, up! Now!" Ugly screamed over the sound of gunfire. "He can no go we leave without. Move!"

Leo looked up at Raph who was in the process of spitting curse words and damning the man in front of them telling him to, "Give us a second damnit, we haven't moved in weeks!" When Leo latched onto his friend's bruised arm and tugged him down until they were eye to eye. His voice shaking as hard as his tired arms Leo said, "I don't think… I can't stand up. My legs… they're not working."

Fear washed through Raph's eyes before Leo jerked away to cough violently and spit up some of the bile that had been sitting in his throat since the first time he'd stood up. He looked down at the ground to see speckles of blood mixed into the bile. Leo looked back at his friend without wiping his face knowing it would prove his point. He hoped the blood that speckled the side of his mouth would help prove to Raph that he was already gone, that it was okay to leave him behind. He was dying anyway.

The ground shaking and the man cursing Raph leaned down to put his arm around Leonardo. "I got you Leo, I got you."

Leo let his head lull against his friend's shoulder as he was helped to his worthless feet. Again, the world tilted on its axis. "No, stop," he mumbled as Raph helped him sling his arm around his shoulders to stand up straighter. "Save… Save yourself…"

Raph took a few steps forward. Ugly turned quickly on his heals and was already out the door with his gun held out and finger on the trigger ready to shoot before they even made it a couple of feet.

"What happened to never leave a man behind?" asked Raph gritting his teeth harshly. Leo closed his eyes, nausea taking over his head. He helped take another step before finally recognizing Raph's words. He smirked and parroted what Raph had said all those weeks ago.

"What happened to you not being a stupid idiot?"

They'd finally reached the door with Leo's legs helping him stand awkwardly and Raph's arms wrapped around his waist like a life line when the world blew up in their faces in a mess of fire and rocks.

* * *

It was years or days or hours later when Raph finally opened his eyes. He was surprised and a little disappointed when he looked up to find that there was no angel singing above him with white wings and the face of a mix of Megan Fox and Reese Witherspoon. All he saw was the darkening night sky and ash falling. Looking around, Raph noticed that not only was he outside for the first time in weeks but it was quiet save for the ringing in his ears. There were no children playing ball or men talking or their captors laughing. It was silent and that almost scared him more than the sounds of the people who'd murdered his unit. With a grunt, Raph started to move and shift trying to catalog his injuries. There was a burning in his right shin, his left foot wouldn't move no matter how many times he forced it to do his bidding. Shifting to his right he hissed as both his hips and lower back felt like they were being licked by fire. Quickly he compartmentalized his injuries all the while a foreboding feeling that something was off, he was missing something shadowed him. He moved his hand but felt a tug and looked down to see that he was covered in layers of dirt and wood. Looking around, he noticed he was surrounded by the rubble of what had once been their hut. A ways away something was on fire, the smoke from it was thick and smelled like burnt flesh even from so far away.

"Leo…" he mumbled suddenly, unable to speak any louder, his throat too dry and head pounding too hard. Leo had been right beside him when whatever had gone off hit. He'd had his arm around his friend helping him move but now… where was he?

_Oh, God._

"Look down that way. The rest of you search the rubble," a deep voice that had a thick southern accent ordered from somewhere but Raph paid it no mind. He looked to his right and saw more rubble, then he looked to his left only to see the same thing. Slowly, he brought both hands up to push away the splinters of wood that blanketed his body. He was almost free when he twisted awkwardly and the fire that had been burning his lower back shot up to his shoulders forcing him to stop.

"Leo… Leo… Hamato!" He tried to breathlessly yell for his best friend but it only came out a weak whisper. No, he refused to believe it. After everything they'd gone through, all that they had survived, he couldn't be dead. He couldn't be gone.

_Everyone is going to lose a soldier, a friend, to something and sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it._

Leo had said that what felt like so long ago but no, he couldn't lose him. Talking about losing someone, about letting them die was different than actually giving up on them, actually letting them die. Leo had a family that he needed to get back to. A girlfriend he needed to kiss again. They'd survived an ambush and weeks as prisoners. He couldn't lose him now. Raph couldn't lose his best friend, his brother. He had so much life to live he couldn't be gone, be dead. He couldn't die. He couldn't –

A few feet away from Raph a small groan came from the splinters of wood. Wood and dirt shifted slightly but enough that it caught Raph's eye. He pushed himself using only his hands to the groaning mess of debris. Flicking and throwing away the rubble and splinters he came across an arm, then shoulder. After another couple of handfuls of dirt a face came into view. It was dirty and messy and bloody but it was a face. A beautiful, beautiful face.

"Leo!" He yelled, tears leaking from his eyes. Raph dusted off his friends face with light hands trying to ignore his burning back. Tear tracks made their way down his face as he gazed at his very alive best friend.

"H-hey there, Ra-Raphie," Leo mumbled opening his eyes into small slits. A dirty smile forced its way across his face as he looked up at Raph's wet and worried eyes.

Raph sniffed, "I thought I'd lost you man."

"Yer gonna save my life, remember?" It was hard for Leo to talk, his jaw felt loose and off kilter. "And I'm gonna… save yers."

"Yeah, Leo. Yeah, Leo," Raph said wiping his eyes fiercely. He was too tired, too exhausted, too hungry and thirsty, too happy to do anything but agree with his best friend. His best friend that was a little worse for wear but alive.

Behind them something snapped just as a bright light shined into Raph's face blinding him and making him hiss.

"I found them! I've got them!" The wielder of the light shouted loudly. Raph came closer to Leo, practically baring his teeth ready to protect his brother. They'd already survived so much, he wasn't about to get captured a second time. The person holding the light turned it off the same time as more men circled around the pair.

"Corporal Raphael Jones and Sergeant Leonardo Hamato?" Came a breathless voice. The man stepped closer until Raph could make him out in the dim light. He was tall, dirty and had an… American uniform covering his chest and shoulders and running down both legs with combat boots and a hard helmet perched on his head. Raph looked around seeing all the men holding M-16's surrounding them, no,  _guarding_  them. They were all American soldiers in American fatigues with an American flag displayed proudly on their shoulders. The man who spoke had an amazing American southern accent and had a smile plastered across beautiful American face. "We've been looking for you two for a while."

"Oh, my God," Leo smiled through his tears up at their rescuers. Raph slowly laid his head down next to his friends unable to keep himself up any longer.

"It's 'bout time you fuckers got here," Raph said with a smirk as he looked around at the men who surrounded them.

"It took us a while," The southern solider nodded, "but we found you. How about we get you guys home now?"


	5. Chapter 5

_At the end of a war there are three armies. The army of the wounded, the army of the dead, and the army of the mourners."_

_\- German proverb_

It wasn't as simple as just going home. There were tests to do and procedures to enforce and mandatory quarantine and surgeries that took hours and psych evaluations and debriefing and questions and questions and more questions.

_How did it happen?_

_Who did you see die exactly?_

_Did you dispose of every Code sheet?_

_Did you see them all burn?_

_Why did you burn them?_

_Walk us though what happened before it happened._

_Did you try to fight back?_

_What happened to the girl who tried to save you?_

_Do you think any of the others got away?_

_How are you feeling?_

* * *

The hospital room was stark white, strangely bare and large holding two skinny boys lain on either bed. Leo lay in his soft white bed, eyes closed and breath even. IV's were clipped and attached to his right arm and hand. Fluids streamed into his bloodstream from the large bag hung next to his bed. Bandages were tightly wrapped around his head, chest, left arm and right leg that had been set and casted cleanly a few days prior. Beside him, Raph sat up in his bed looking through one of the many magazines they were allowed to view. No newspapers, smart phones, television or people who weren't cleared by the military were allowed in the room. According to the Captain who was currently in charge of debriefing them there were too many news stories of speculations of the incident and they didn't want the boys stories to be swayed by the media and newsroom discussions. According to Captain Harrison there were people littered everywhere outside chomping at the bit to get the story, to steal an interview of the boys. Raph hadn't seen head nor tail of anyone other than the doctors and a few of the brass that asked him questions.

Raph didn't remember much after their hut was destroyed and they were found. It was all fuzz filled with increments of conscious that burned with pain and questions. He remembered waking up what felt like minutes after the southern soldier found him and Leo and looking around to see a room filled with surgical supplies, a man in scrubs bending over him speaking softly with reassurance before putting something over his mouth and falling back into unconsciousness.

He remembers jerking awake to the sounds of screaming intermixed between coughs and gags. People in scrubs and uniforms surrounded a bed on the other side of a large room he lay in. The uniformed people were on every side of the screaming body, all doing different jobs of trying to hold him down, sedate him, calm him down. Raph remembers looking over from his own hospital bed and catching a glimpse of brown hair, pale skin - it was Leo. He tried to yell at the people, tell them to just back away from him. He doesn't like lots of people being so close to him – never has liked crowds. He thinks he got a few words out before another nurse turned towards him, eyes wide and plunged a thin syringe into his arm.

He remembers the feeling of warm sunlight on his face and arms and the feeling of weightless movement as people moved him. Raph opened his eyes to the worry-lined, tanned face of a man above him. The man had looked down at him, smiled brightly then said, "Looks like you're going back to the States, Corporal." Raph attempted to move his mouth to smile back but his face felt hot and sore. Split lips being aggravated and burns stretching uncomfortably. He thinks the man understood what he'd been trying to do however because he put his hand lightly on his shoulder and whispers  _Good luck_ into his ear then disappeared along with the blue sky and blinding sun as Raph was loaded onto the plane. The last thing he remembers is turning his head to see the slits of Leo's bleary eyes staring at him before he was lost yet again.

The door to their room was opened by a Private in dress uniform. The boy opened the door then stood aside to allow for Captain Harrison to enter carrying a brown leather brief case. The man was military intelligence from the tips of his mustache to the ends of his spit-shine polished shoes. He stood too tall with too much candy – also spit polished, Raph suspected – on his chest. The man, he'd been told, was assigned to be their caretaker of sorts. To question them, get details and also get them anything they needed. Raph suspected his job went further than just simply taking care of him and Leo but he kept his mouth shut, answered any questions asked and tried his damn hardest to keep his snark at a minimum

"Jones," he nodded before looking over at Leo, his face scrunched and lips disappeared under his greying mustache. Raph understood the Captains concern, it had been almost two weeks since their rescue and while Raph had been questioned and briefed as soon as he gained conciousness and was deemed fit to answer questions, Leo hadn't been able to keep his eyes open for more than a few minutes since arriving back to the States. Raph was certain his friend hadn't even been awake and in control of himself back when they were still in country. That was the reason their family wasn't allowed to visit either of them. Per military regulation all soldiers involved must be briefed and questioned prior to being released into family care or, in this case, to even see their family.

"Sir," Raph answered trying to stiffen his aching back.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine, sir," he shot back automatically.

"Bullshit." The man said taking his usual seat beside his bed.

"Sir?" Raph looked at the man in surprise and a little guilt. Guilt because he thought he had been doing a better job of hiding his pain. His body ached still from being jarred and thrown from the bomb, his head hurt where he'd smashed it into something hard and unforgiving, his skin felt raw and there were blank spots, holes in his memory of times that he can't seem to remember of their time in captivity. Even with all the drugs parts of his body still felt sore, stiff. The doctors said that was normal, it was all normal to still be in discomfort.

 _Discomfort_ , he thought with a hiss.  _If this is discomfort I don't want to know how they classify pain._

Captain Harrison played with the end of his mustache. "Look son, I know what you've been through was tough. You and that boy," he pointed his thumb over to Raph's sleeping friend, "have been through a lot. There's no point in hiding it. Just tell me how you're really feeling and I can get the psyche people in here and they can do their job and you can get better and move on with your life."

"What do you want me to say sir?" Raph snapped at the man, his voice rising in anger. He was angry because this man who he had known for all of five days thought he could be fixed so easily. Like he could just shrug off what had happened with a brush off his shoulder. This man thought he could just get over this and that's it, he's welcome and a thank you thrown in for good measure.

The man looked at him with his head tilted to the side. "I want you to tell me how you feel. How does it feel to be home?"

"I'm not home. I'm stuck in a hospital." Raph scowled.

Harrison nodded in understanding, "I know you want to see your family but that just isn't possible at the moment. Not until Sergeant Hamato wakes up." Raph gnawed at the side of his cheek looking away from the Captain.

"How are you feeling?" He asks again just as he'd asked over and over again for the last three days, yet this time there was something different in his tone. Were as all the other times he'd sounded like he wanted to know how the boy was feeling purely out of habit and had an order to do so by some higher up, but not this time. His voice sounded thicker and his head was tilted ever so slightly. The look in his eyes said that he did actually care how Raph was feeling. Either that or he was a damn good liar – which was completely possible.

Letting himself fall back against the hospital bed for the first time since the Captain walked in, Raph licked his lips then let out a long breath. He shook his head gazing at the ceiling. "I don't know how I'm feeling sir." He admitted truthfully. "I feel sore. My body hurts but I'm used to that by now. I have so many drugs going through my system I feel like I'm floating half the time..." He trailed off, his Adams apple bobbed. "A lot of people died sir, and for some reason Leo and I didn't. All I want to do it talk to my friend but he's so drugged out or something that he won't wake the fuck up. On top of everything I feel like a fucking three-year-old because I really, like really  _really_ , just want to see my brother. I want Case to see that I'm alright."

The words had just flown from Raph's mouth with no block, no dam or filter. He let out another lungful of air and blinked back the tears that stung at the corners of his eyes. He furiously whipped the sides before adding, "So there. Sound the bugle now."

"You feel guilty," Harrison shifted until his head was leaning towards the other side. Across the room one of Leo's monitors beeped before giving out a long purr. Raph looked over at his friend to see his face settle back from a grimace. The pain meds had obviously just been administered.

"Damn straight I feel guilty, who wouldn't?"

_I lived, they didn't._

How does God choose? Whose prayers does he refuse? Who does he just let die? Who does he pick to be the lucky ones and go on with their lives?

 _Lucky one…_  Raph thought on that a moment.  _Surviving doesn't always mean that you're lucky. Maybe it means that you're damned, damned to live another day with the knowledge of what happened. Damned to be jaded to the rest of the world around you._

"If you think you're the only person who's ever suffered from PTSD you're wrong. People go through this shit all the time." The Captain said calmly, patiently. He didn't speak like he was trying to pander to Raph.

Raph shook his head, "I don't think I got PTSD sir."

"Oh?"

"Survivors guilt, maybe but not PTSD."

A genuine smile crossed the man's face for the first time since Raph met the man. "Well now see? We're finally getting somewhere."

* * *

Leo opened his sticky eyes with care. The light in the room wasn't as bright as the first few times he'd awoken but he still winced as the rays of fading sunlight hit his sensitive eyes. Looking around, trying not to move to save his beaten body, Leo took in his surroundings. He was laid in a medium sized white room. A large door loomed to his right, a small TV in front and a big empty space with unhooked monitors to his left. Something was missing from the room, he could tell. The last time he awoken he'd felt safe and secure and not alone. But now, now he felt empty. Alone. Something was off.

Heart beating fast, Leo moved his arms for the first time trying to move away the blankets that he was sequestered inside. Moving his hand something rattled to his right making him jump slightly. Looking up, Leo took in the large bag of liquid that made a trail into his arm through a thin needle. Beeps both long and short and fast and loud sounded around him pounding out his heart rate or some type of rate. The sounds were annoying. Leo licked his bottom lip forcing himself into taking a deep breath before he started panicking.

He couldn't remember much, anything really, from after the explosion. Thinking back on it, he didn't really remember all that much from before the explosion either. It was all foggy with bouts of clarity where he was coughing or yelling or hurting. He could remember Raph's face at different points. Smiling with a backdrop of a dried mud hut behind him. Raph red faced and sputtering at dirty, sweaty men in enemy uniforms. Raph's face inches from his own with his mouth wide in a scream of begging and pleading.

Images flashed through Leo's head making him wince and grab at his temples.

Running men. Screams. Fire. Death.

"It's no use man, they're dead. All dead."

His mouth goes painfully dry, dryer than he's ever felt, tears sting painfully in his eyes. Here, alone, in what looks to be a hospital room, he's alive. He's alive and so many aren't. The thought occurs to Leo; is Raph alive?

 _He has to be. He has to be alive._  They didn't survive so much just to die in the end. Leo feels his heart constrict. His mind is still so fuzzy that he can't think straight. He can't remember, did someone carry him from the hut? Or did he carry someone? Who drug him through the valley of the shadow of death? Did he get that person killed for helping him?

The beeps get more spastic, loud and pestering in a way that digs into his mind.

_Alone. I'm alone. I'm alive and they're not._

A woman, he can tell by her deep brown hair being swept back into a less than neat bun, is suddenly by his side wearing green scrubs and too white shoes. He jumps slightly as she puts a hand on his arm and quickly moves his arm away from her grasp.

"Sergeant Hamato? Can you hear me?" The nurse says calmly trying to claim his attention. Leo looks up at her, his eyes twitching and his teeth grinding absently. He takes a deep breath trying to fill his lungs then lets it out shakily. He take another breath then another until his heart calms down and he can think properly. The memories start to come back slowly. An army doctor smiling down at him telling him he was going home. Being put onto a plane to be sent back to the States with Raph's burned face looking back at him.

"How are you feeling, Sergeant?" questions the nurse whose name he doesn't remember.

For the first time since waking up Leo looks down at himself. His hands are at his side, IV attached to the crook of his arm. Bandages wrap around different spots of his body neatly. His chest feels heavy, thick but not suppressing as it had in last few weeks in that hut. Leo notices that his hip is stiff and sore, he tries to move his legs in a different position but stops when fire shoots up his leg. From the tips of his toes in his right all the way to his hips is a line of fire licking and pulsing. He sucks in a sharp breath not expecting to feel something so horrible. A part of him thinks the drugs must be wearing off.

The nurse, busy with checking bandages and readings on each machine stops suddenly at his groan of pain. She spy's the beads of sweat forming on his brow and the pained lines in the creases of his eyes. Slowly, not tentatively but efficiently she puts herself right into the boy's line of vision.

"Well, looks like you are in need of another dose of meds, huh?" She says this with a smile that isn't forced and a voice that is light. She doesn't know what this boy has been through – she's only seen the damage and heard the speculated stories. The woman remembers when the two boys had been brought in. One boy, the red read – Corporal Jones – had been awake and at least semi cognizant while this soldier had been in a medically induced coma. Both boys had smelled strongly of the Central American jungle and had tan, burned skin that flaked off in patches. They had shown all the signs of dehydration and malnutrition even though both had been in allied care for over a week and had been on fluids for just as long.

It had been a big deal bringing these two former prisoners of war into the army hospital in the heart of Washington DC. The news had gone wild with the story of first an entire camp of US and Allies forces being ambushed. Every lifeless body had been laid out all long side each other around the base camp by the Terrorists in Central America. Some die hard news reporters from the Army's Press Corps had even gotten a few pictures snapped of the massacre. All the bodies were counted – there were two missing.

The big TV networks had the gull to show the pictures on their broadcasts. The nurse could still see the photos in her head, blurry and blackened in all the right places where a mangled body of a soldier laid. The population had screamed in outrage. So many didn't even want to be there in the first place. Many called for the presidents head claiming it was his fault all this had happened and so many were dead. Families of the fallen soldiers had been interviewed. All the mothers crying and fathers holding them while the siblings - both younger and older - seemed to just sit there in numbed silence. The woman had watched the news reports everyday hoping to hear something, anything good, bad, it didn't matter. Then, two survivors had been found in the wreckage of a strongly guarded hut in the middle of one of the largest enemy villages. An official statement from the President of the United States had been released saying two soldiers both nineteen years of age had been found and rescued. Both men – for, he had called them men even though both had the faces of babies – were to receive medals for their valor and to the people who had been killed the President would personally see to it that the men responsible would be taken down once and for all.

It was funny in a way that wasn't funny at all that the day after both soldiers arrived in the hospital the outside had been swarmed by people. Well-wishers and protesters alike. Both Hamato and Jones's pictures had been shown on every newspapers front page and breaking news headline. Everyone knew their names, everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of them. It made the woman sick. She thought of her son, twenty-three-years old and in the Medial Corp of the navy. He was off someplace in the pacific. If her son had been hurt like these boys had and all these people were to show up at the hospital protesting and angry while other sent good wishes and prayers, the woman thinks she might be sick. The fact that neither boy was able to see their families yet also made the nurse feel nauseous and angry.

The nurse looked over the IV line in the Sergeants arm. She'd seen him sleeping calmly and also thrashing in panic, waking up disoriented and scared. She knows how to deal with patients like this. Ones who don't want to be touched but are so hurt they can't take care of themselves. This was why she wanted to become a nurse, to help people like this. The nurse thinks of the other boy who was currently getting an X-ray in room seven down the hall. That boy, Corporal Jones was a fiery one. A smile crossed the woman's face as she thought back to how protective he was when the sergeant had woken up a few days ago. He had been confused and in pain. Jones, not being able to get through his friend's mental confusion had yelled, actually  _yelled_  through the closed door to the doctors on the floor. When the nurses and Doctor Lee had rushed in the other boy let out a barking order to the medical staff of what to do. To  _be careful_  and  _don't touch him there_ and  _back up he doesn't like it when people get too close._

"I'm fine," the boy said finally in a small voice. The woman, a going-on-ten-years nurse, pursed her lips while her back was turned from him. She knew a lie when she heard one. Her husband always says she had an excellent Bullshit Detector.

"Do you remember when I told you not to move your legs?" She asks turning back to Leo. Leo gazed down at his hands, his shoulders sagged. He shook his head, "No. Not really."

Again, a smile graces her lips. "That's all right, you've been kind of out of it lately." She finishes her checks and goes to leave when Hamato speaks up.

"Do you know when..." He trails off licking his lips and bringing his free hand up to push hair from his face. The woman turns and puts her hand on his arm softly. He flinched but doesn't pull away. "Do you know when I can see my family?"

"Soon," the nurse answered not really knowing how to answer. She was just a nurse, she wasn't given any details. Just told to take care of the patients in room one-five-three and make sure they both get what they need.

With a light squeeze and a pat like she used to do to her own boy the nurse smiles one last time and leaves the room, closing the door behind herself with a click.

* * *

Raph let out a long groan along with a puff of breath later that night after both boys had been fed. Raph had eaten while Leo had been given supplements through one of the many lines that were peppered around his body. Leo felt proud yet exhausted; he'd actually managed to stay awake for the majority of the day. They weren't allowed to watch TV so Leo and Raph just talked. Raph even procured a deck of cards from somewhere and proceeded to test in Leo was psychic by picking a card and having the other boy guess which one he had. Needless to say that game didn't last long and was quickly discarded.

Raph raked his fingers through his slightly longer than usual hair then fussed it back down again. "Shit. I need a smoke or something."

Leo was busy staring at the ceiling not wanting to close his eyes and go back to sleep even though he felt exhausted and the drugs in his system were finally taking hold of him. "You don't even like cigarettes, Hothead," he reminded him carding his own fingers along the IV line in his arm. The stupid thing made his whole arm itch.

Raph looked over at him with slightly glazed, wholly serious eyes. "After what we've been through Blue, smoking don't seem so bad."

* * *

_Leonardo is walking down a road of dirt with trees on either side. It's just light enough for him to see the tree line to his left and right. The road seems to stretch on forever, so he keeps walking. Dirt is kicked up from his booted feet, sweat drips down from his forehead – it's so hot. A part of Leo questions himself as to why he's walking, another part of him doesn't care. Putting one foot in front of the other the teenager continues to walk down the dirt road. Something makes a noise under him and he looks down to see that the once dry road is now wet. It's not too wet but moist and makes the dirt stick to the bottoms of his tan combat boots._

_He continues on._

_Suddenly the road seems to get wetter, it's sloshing under his feet. He looks down again only to find that the water is thick and off color. It's red, thick red mixed with the dirt creating a sickening concoction. Without thinking Leo stops, bends down and places two fingers into the thick mush that he'd trailed into. He removes his fingers and brings them up to his face. A silent scream erupts from his mouth as his hand starts to shake. Blood. It's thick and warm and it's all around him. It's a road of blood that he'd trudged into._

_Taking off at a run while trying to wipe his fingers on his uniform to get the blood off of himself Leo barely notices when a figure starts to run towards him. He'd so scared, his heart beating so erratically fast that he doesn't slow down when the figure suddenly jerks to the side and falls, face first onto the bloody ground. Leo looks at the figure as he passes it. It's a man in an American uniform with the back of his head caved in spilling blood out and onto the ground. Tears well in Leo's eyes and he looks away forcing himself to run harder, faster._

_More figures – men – appear, this time closer to Leo. They come out of the tree line all with some type of wound. Some are holding their severed arm in the hand that's still attached, others have holes in their chests spewing blood. They are all walking towards Leo who suddenly can't run anymore. His feet are stuck, glued down to the bloody road. He can't move so he watches the walking wounded come towards him. Something about their faces look familiar but he can't seem to place them. Leo is just about to open his mouth to tell them to back off, go away, when one of them jerks and falls to the ground. Another screams and falls. One man pleads for his mother right before he is jerked violently to the side and falls then sinks down through the road of blood._

_Leo can't… He can't think. He wants to get away, needs to get away. He tries to get his legs free, maybe he can help them or run away or call for back up. Anything! But he can't move, and they're getting closer and now Leo can see. These men, they can't be helped, they can't be saved because they were already dead. They get closer and closer with their dull black lifeless eyes and putrid blood seeping from their wounds. Leo screams as hard as he can begging, pleading, crying for them to go away – that he can't help them. One gets too close and Leo swings at him trying to get the dead man to go away. His hand just sinks into the rotten flesh. The man grabs at Leo's bloody uniform –_

Leonardo wakes up with a scream on his lips. He is breathing hard, drenched in sweat and his eyes are watering. Looking around Leo tries to take in his surroundings. Hospital bed. Monitors. Unwatched TV. Raph asleep in the bed on the other side of the room. After too long Leo settles back into his bed. It's not that much times later when a nurse rushes in to see what was the matter, why his heart rate was so fast. Leo brushes her off coldly and she leaves after checking over his monitors one last time.

Leo takes a deep breath and stares at the ceiling thinking about the road of blood.

* * *

It's less than a day later that Captain Harrison comes into the room with his brown brief case that he never pulls any papers from and stands in front of Leo. Behind him walk some nurses who take Raph's bed to roll away. It was time for Leo to be briefed and Raph couldn't be in the same room. Leo knew it was how it went, policy, but as he watched his friend being carted away into another room to wait until they were finished Leo couldn't stop the feeling of dread that lay like a stone in his stomach.

"How are you?" Harrison finally asked after two and a half hours of questioning Leo. By this point the Captain is sitting in a plastic chair beside the boy who is on the verge of another panic attack, he can feel it. Leo feels like he's been wrung out, put through the wringer again and again a thousand times over. His head is pounding making his vision double. Thinking about everything that happened, it hurts. It hurts thinking that he didn't do anything – that they just died. No one else made it out. How is that even possible?

"Fine," he answers automatically in the same dull voice he'd been using for the last hour and fifty-five minutes.

 _Not fine,_  his brain supplies for him.

All professional and hard lines Harrison nods. "Do you need any help with anything?"

"No," he answers back looking the man straight in the eye.

_Yes._

"Do you want to talk about anything?"

Talk about what? Talk about the fact that he can't close his eyes without seeing Stockman's head caving in? Talk about how they barely fought against those Charlies just because they had guns? What could he say to make this man understand how horrible, how useless he feels even now because all he could do for so long was just lay on the soiled ground and cough and choke and gasp while Raph had to take care of him. There's a road of blood that is carved in his head and he sees it every time he tries to close his eyes. He can hear the screams from his fellow soldiers but also the cries from the village that was bombed. There had been woman and children and  _babies_  in that village. So many dead…

"No, thank you."

_Yes. Please. It's eating me away._

"You went through a lot. Is there anything you need?" The man almost sounds like he's saying the same thing in as many different ways as he can.

"No, I'm fine." He answers in his soldier voice, the voice that he used whenever a superior spoke to him.

 _Yes. I need help. So many died. I almost died. Why didn't I die? I was useless._ His mind was a torturous, traitorous place.

"You're a hero, you know."

A knife slides into his heard then falls into his stomach. It shreds his heart to pieces then wreaks havoc in his chest. Men yelling, gun shots peppering the ground, smoke choking the air, a little girl telling them to follow her and they do and they get caught and the little girl gets killed because of them. Flashes of throwing up blood and tearing his uniform to clot gashes on his friend's body. Someone begs for their mother, another asks for forgiveness from God. Death and darkness and blood all wrapped up in that one word; hero.

"Yes," he says dully, quietly. "I know."

_No. I'm not, I'm weak. I'm no hero._

Harrison clears his throat, "They want to give you a medal."

Leo has to look away from the man so he won't see the shame filled tears that flood his eyes.

* * *

Raph is rolled back into the hospital room an hour after Captain Harrison takes his leave. Leo still feels raw. Raph looks at his friend, sighs and picks up his magazine intent on reading it from over to cover for the third time. He's seen Leo like this before; he knows what that closed off look on his friends face means. It means to stay the fuck away and not to speak to him. Leo was Raph's battle buddy so he knew what every expression and little facial twitch meant.

"You think…" Leo finally speaks after they've eaten dinner and had their last checks for the night from the nursing staff and doctors. Raph had the bandages on his arms replaced while Leo's cast is looked over on his leg and deemed that it has to be changed tomorrow. "You think we could have done something? For the guys? Maybe if I had gotten a distress alert out, called in a code red to the main base. We could have… have…"

Laying his unfinished magazine to the side Raph sat up gingerly being mindful of his injuries. "You can't be seriously blaming yourself for this. There's nothing we could have done, Blue."

"We could have turned around!" Leo practically yells shuttering as Raph uses his old nickname that he'd gotten in country. "We could have helped them!"

Anger pushes Raph's brows together. "No, we couldn't –"

"Yes!" he interrupts urgently trying to get his friend to see, to understand that they were cowards, that they left the others behind. "We could have done some –"

More suppressed anger was gathering inside Raph. "There wasn't anything left we –"

"There were still people back there! Our men, our friends –"

"They were dead, Leo! I saw Hollywood and Mooch and it was all fucked up man, FUBAR –"

"We could have done something, any –"

"NO!" Raph explodes making Leo inadvertently jerk back. "THERE'S NOTHING WE COULD HAVE DONE AND YOU  _KNOW_  IT!"

Tears of anger and desperation and sorrow spill from Leo's eyes as he too explodes. "THERE WERE FUCKING NEW GUYS BACK THERE, OUR REPLACEMENTS WHO DIDN'T EVEN STAND A DAMN CHANCE! WE COULD HAVE GONE BACK!"

With that Leo falls back against his bed violently, plucks his pillow up from behind his head and slams it into his face. IV lines are dislodged and other lines are twisted forcing the machines he's attached to to let off high beeps but the boy doesn't care. Leonardo lets out the loudest, most heartbreaking scream he can into the soft anti-germ pillow.

On the other side of the room Raph falls back down until his face is buried in the side of his bed. He listens as he friend screams with tears running from his eyes.

* * *

Captain Harrison strolls into the room a few days later. Leo was still fuming, he hadn't spoken to Raph and Raph seemed to be trying his best not to utter a word to him. Just like all the other times this man had walked into the room he is carrying a leather briefcase and his mustache is immaculate as ever. Across the room Raph is helped into a wheel chair and wheeled out of the room. The redheaded boy puffs his lip out, crosses his arms and refuses to look over at Leo as he passes him. Leo also looks away biting on the inside of his cheek, a pit forming in his stomach even though he was still angry.

"How are you feeling?" the Captain questions sitting down.

"Fine," he spits back automatically.

"Can you stop bullshitting me now boy?" Harrison's gruff voice surprises Leo, it's so different from the professional demeanor he had shown last time they talked. Leo looks at the man keeping his mouth shut.

"Look I get it," the man shrugs cracking his fingers and leaned back in the hospital chair. "You're feeding me and all these other people this crap because you just want me to leave you alone so you can brood. But newsflash kid, that guy over there went through the same shit you did and you two could be talking to each other trying to figure everything out instead of acting like girls and fighting."

Leo stays silent; the sound of his breathing fills the room. He refuses to look over at the Captain. Harrison scoots his chair closer then brings his face nearer to Leo.

"I know you want to see your family, son," he says. "But right now you're sick. You and Jones went through a lot of shit and both of you just can't see your families right –"

"I don't want to see them," Leo whispers quickly, looking down at his hands twisting harshly into the bed sheets. It was something that had been jumping around in his head for the last few days. He hadn't spoken to his brothers in so long, too long. The last time he'd talked to Mike he had hung up on him quickly after without really saying goodbye. Leo was… he was just bad news, bad luck. Raph, the only person who he trusted couldn't stand to be in the same room as him. Raph was done with him and to be honest he felt done with himself. He couldn't sleep without drugs gushing through his system and when he did fall into unconsciousness he could see them – the faces of the dead. The men who died because of him.

Harrison leaned forward until his elbows touched his knees. His military issued pants bunched up revealing black long socks and shoe laces with no plastic tips on the ends. The man slowly brought his hand up to card through his mustache without saying anything. Leo twirled a loose strand of the blanket around his finger refusing to look up at the Captain. Harrison sat back up, licked his lips then crossed his right leg over his left at the knee.

"They didn't want you to enlist? Did you do it behind their backs?"

"I told my dad," Leo heard himself saying. "But my brothers found out when my orders to report for boot camp came in the mail."

Harrison's foot wiggled and bounced. He bit his lip, "They the protest type? The ones with the signs and marches?" Leo nodded not understanding why he was telling this man anything in the first place. Harrison puckered his lips in thought. Leo ran his fingers over the bandage on his broken hand a few times before he felt the ends fraying.

"So many people died," Leo whispered the words that had been haunting his every waking moment and terrorizing his dreams. "One second I was sorting papers then the next Raph and I are running from the Comm tent that I set on fire. We didn't even... We didn't even turn back to help them. We had to get away and we did and they all died. They died and we didn't..." Leo cleared his throat.

"Sir... All these people keep asking me if I'm alright and I don't... I don't know if I'm alright. I don't know what's going on. I don't even know if this is all even real. This might just be another dream and I'm still back in that place with Raph."

"Look son," the man begins. "I'm no therapist or Doctor, but I've seen action. I've seen people die and I've almost been killed myself. I was in a Humvee in Kandahar back in '05 that ran over an IED. There was a boy not too much older than you, his name was Willy and he was our gunner. When we got hit I grabbed the closest man to me who just happened to be Willy, un-assed the truck and drug him and myself to safety as best I could. I still don't remember everything that happened after the bomb went off but what I do remember, what I'll never forget, is the look in Willy's eyes when he looked down and realized that his leg was gone, just gone. It was nothing but a stump. Here was this wet behind the ears FNG who'd just graduated high school now with no leg, a shit ton of military training that did nothing in the end to stop that bomb from exploding."

Leo looked over at the man. "How do you get over something like that?"

"It was rough at first, sure. He had to reevaluate his life. Make some changes and do a lot of thinking but now he's better. He's got a pretty wife and some kids. Lives in Georgia on some peach farm that he works on. We keep in touch."

"So that's it? He just got over it - moved on?"

"No... No I don't think you even get over something like that. He just learned to cope. To control it and not have it control him."

"I don't know if I could do that."

"You already survived. With both arms and legs and a head and everything."

"Stockman - Sergeant Baxter Stockman - I saw him get hit." He blurts out without thinking, "His head caved in. Every time I close my eyes I see it. I can hear them screaming and I can feel myself running through the words. It never ends."

Harrison moved his head up and down slowly while shaking his foot. He opened his mouth to say something but Leo cut him off again. He didn't want to cry but tears brimmed his eyes. "And every night when I go to sleep I dream about this road covered in blood. I can't stop thinking about it! There's wounded men walking towards me but I can't run towards them or away from them because I'm stuck in this road of blood."

The Captain doesn't say anything for a few minutes, he just listens to Leo's hard breathing.

"You're not expected to do this alone. There are people who can and will help you." He murmured.

"But I'm... I'm a soldier." Leo's voice cracked. Tears started to well over from his eyes.

"Soldiers are people too. We're not machines or robots."

Leonardo took one breath, then two and three before his throat closed and he let out a sob. Tears cascaded down his cheeks as he sat back to stare at the ceiling. He cried for all the men who had died. He cried for the little girl who tried to help them. He cried for all the families who'd never see their loved ones again. He cried for Mooch and Hollywood and Salls and Stockman. He cried for Raphael. He cried for himself. And after he was done crying he whipped his tears and took a deep breath finally feeling a weight being lifted from his chest for the first time since all this had begun.

* * *

"Raph?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for being an asshole."

"It's okay man, I was a dick too."

"After everything that's happened… It just… You know, I mean…"

"It's okay, I know. You're my brother, Blue and I love ya."

"Love ya too, Hothead."

"We'll get through this man."

"Yeah, I know we will."

* * *

How did the men before him do this? How did they stand to take the praise when they'd seen men die, when they'd gone through so much, seen Hell and lived to tell. How could they just stand there, receive the metal they didn't even want, didn't think they deserved, and shake hands with the man who started the war in the first place?

Captain Harrison is standing in full dress uniform between both the boys' bed. He looks crisp and clean. Both Raph and Leo had been bathed and shaved and put into new gowns. Both beds had been re-sheeted with new whiter pillows and blankets. The room been swept and cleaned, disinfected within an inch of its life then wiped again. Leo still had to be swathed in blankets on account of the temperature being turned down in order to accommodate the high profile guest that was set to arrive any minute. Raph was unnaturally quiet while Leo's hands shook. Neither of them looked even half way presentable even with their bodies washed and face shaved. Bruises marred the sides of Leo's face while the burnt skin on Raph's face was flaking in places.

"You get the metal." Harrison tries to walk the boys through what was about to happen. Leo doesn't feel scared or nervous – just tired. "You shake the man's hand. You pose for a few pictures. Then he leaves and you stow the metal away in some place you'll never have to look at it again then you forget about it and try to live your life. That's what you gotta do, boys."

The man comes in with a staff of burly looking men in black suits and wires coming from their ears. Behind them is men with cameras clutched in tow. The man, the  _President_ , has the eyes of a man whose seen and knows too much and greying hair. After too much pomp and circumstance he reaches his hand out to Leo first then turns to Raph. Leo shakes the man's hand using the hand that still has IV's cascading from his arm. Raph is sat in a wheelchair next to him.

"You are very brave, son." The President says to Leo shaking his hand and smiling while one of the camera men film and another takes pictures.

"Thank you sir." Leo answers with a nod and no emotion on his face.

 _I don't feel very brave,_  he says softly in his mind.

The President turns to Raph saying the same well-rehearsed words that he'd given Leo about how brave he was and how honored he is to meet him. Raph nods and smiles falsely at all the right points just as Leo had done. When it's all over and the most important man in America had taken his leave Raph looks over at Leo from his own bed now covered in blankets and holding his metal box in hand.

"What are you going ta'do with yer metal, Leo?"

Leo holds up the soft wooden box that his Distinguished Service Cross is tucked in. He glares at it one last time before putting it aside. "Show my dad," he tells Raph who nods. "Then put it in a place where I never have to look at it again."


	6. Chapter 6

" _We who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once…"_

_–Joe Galloway,_ _We Were Soldiers_

"No, no, no. You cannot just add one to another to get the final result. If it was that easy then I'd tell you to get yourself back to high school Calculus and call it a day." The slightly jumpy professor attempted to joke but kept his voice at the same level, the same monotone way that he always spoke in. Only the students who were paying attention to his words caught the joke and even then only a sparse handful laughed. Everyone else was too busy scribing down the notes the man was writing across his wall covered chalkboard. "The thing with this particular function is that you have to grab the number, after putting it in exponential form, and place it here over the -"

Don couldn't sit here anymore. It was strange, he loved Advanced Calculus 305. He loved the numbers and equations and the way everything had a way, nothing was left to chance. He loved how if you moved one thing everything else changed and morphed into something different. Whether it was right or wrong, didn't matter - well it did matter, but the new equations that he could come up with were almost as exciting as the old ones. But now, as he sat in his normal seat in the exact middle of the classroom he couldn't pay attention. He couldn't concentrate on the numbers the professor wrote on the board, he couldn't think about the different equations or theorems. Don stared blankly down at his open notebook. He looked at the white college-ruled page but he didn't see the paper. His mind started to wonder as it always did in every class he'd managed to attend these last three and a half weeks.

He thought about his older brother. He tried to stear his thoughts away from the obvious, the horrible. He tried desperately not to think about where he was, if he was alive, if he thought he hated him. Instead, Don forced his thoughts towards the simple things. Late nights at the lab on campus that always ended with Leonardo showing up and knocking on the window of the main lab three times - it was their own signal, a way for Don to know Leo was outside waiting to walk him home. He thought about the way his older brother used to have longer hair – before he joined the army – which he swooshed to the side. All the girls used to stare at him and whisper behind hands and into ears about him. About how his eyes were so blue and his hair so brown. Girls would fall over themselves trying to reach him, trying to get a word to him. And Don would just stand there in the hallway, smirking, waiting until the right moment to sweep in because he knew his brother hated attention, hated to be in the center of it. It was really a waste, the girls would say, that someone so handsome, so beautiful kept to himself so much.

In his pocket Don's phone buzzed but he ignored it. He always did during class even if he wasn't paying attention. It couldn't have been anything important. There hadn't been any news in the past three and a half weeks since Captain McVay had come to their door. Since then it had all been reassurances and empty promises. The Chaplin had come to their house a handful of times. Every time he came he would leave with a prayer for Leo's soul and the family.

Don had seen the news. He tried hard not to but he always did. The day CNN had gotten the report that Base 381 near Tabacon, Pueblo Nuevo and San Luis had been attacked Don was home alone. He'd sat right at the base of the television and leaned as close as he could trying to hear and see everything in the news report.

The reports had painted a massacre of sleeping soldiers being woken up with bullets in their chests. Day time talk shows screamed and yelled in outrage while the nighttime newsrooms had called for blood. The President had released an official statement, but Don hadn't listened to it. He'd walked in on Mikey listening to the television with tears clogging his clear blue eyes and switched it off then gathered his younger brother in his arms and held him while he cried.

When the names of the two men missing in action had been released news reporters had called Splinter asking at first then begging for interviews. Trucks and people had camped out in their front yard waiting to get a glimpse of the family whose son was maybe-alive-possibly-dead. April stopped going home after a few days. She took up residence in Leonardo's room. She slept in his cold bed and put her makeup on using his empty mirror. Splinter asked her why she didn't want to go home to her family after a week of living with them. April had looked up from the soup she was making the family for dinner and looked at the old man with swollen, exhausted eyes.

"You are my family."

Then she turned back to her cooking like nothing had been said. That was that. End of story. So she stayed.

Don hadn't gone back to school for the first two weeks. He couldn't, not when reporters were swarming their lawn and people kept calling asking for a quote and the house seemed to be in a constant way of shadows and whispers and a mourning silence. Mike didn't laugh anymore; he said it felt like a betrayal. How could he be happy when Leo was dead? Splinter stayed in his room, closed the dojo with a simple paper sign that read:  _all classes cancelled until further notice_. April cooked and cleaned and cooked and cleaned until there was no room in either refrigerators or the ice chest in the basement. She scrubbed the floor in the basement and organized the boxes in the attic. She moved and dusted and sometimes, when she thought she was alone but Don was near she would cry. Sob into a picture or against a box. She would let out wet cries that made Don shiver. At first he'd tried to help her, hold her like he did Mikey but she didn't want that. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to be busy. She wanted her Leo back.

But the time came when Donatello just couldn't take the silence anymore and he decided to start attending classes again, it was then that the stares started. The questions started from his friends, from his classmates. They wanted to know how he was doing, if there had been any news. They wanted to know if he thought his brother was still alive. He didn't answer any of the questions and most of the time he just pretended he never heard them. On one occasion he'd snapped at a girl who wouldn't stop pestering him. She kept asking the stupid questions, the ones he didn't want to think about, the ones that kept him up late at night. Finally he yelled at her, in front of God and everyone he screamed that, "If I haven't given Fox a damn interview what makes you think I'll answer your fucking questions!? Just. Leave. Me. Alone!" Then he'd stormed away, Calculus and Chemistry book in hand with a face so red, hands shaking so much and eyes so wet that he thought he was going to explode.

Walking home was the worst because people recognized him. New York City was huge with millions of people but word spread fast. Pictures of Leonardo and the other guy who was missing – Raphael, Don thought his name was – had been plastered on the mega screens in Times Square. Everyone knew what he looked like. Everyone knew the story of the hundreds that were killed. Central Park had been used as the meeting place for one of the biggest protests in the past fifty years. The reporters said it rivaled even that of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. made his great  _I Have a Dream_ speech. Thousands of people showed up with signs and POW flags and pained their bodies to look like dead soldiers. Some people held pictures of the fallen soldiers on big signs that they pumped up and down and screamed. The people loaded Central Park and held a vigil for two nights to honor those lost. Everyone brought flowers and candles and crosses and beads. It didn't matter what religion you were, it was all represented in the middle of the park where they all gathered.

The people in charge had asked – begged – Splinter and the family to come speak during the peaceful protest. Splinter declined with the shake of his head and his eyes down turned. Then he closed the door and locked it. The people were kind enough however and didn't bother the family again. But Don went. He wore Leonardo's favorite blue sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and sunglasses to hide his face and he went.

People cried. People called for the war to end. People sang the Star-Spangled Banner. People swung around American flags. People yelled. People drank. People prayed. It was all a sight to see.

After the first two days hundreds of empty busses came in to cart everyone from New York to Washington DC. It took days but finally everyone, all the way down to the last protester, stood in Washington. It was all over the news. Some family's who'd lost a son or father or brother talked at the assembly's. They cried into the microphone and pleaded for peace. They stood in front of the White House. They clogged the streets. They camped out inside the Lincoln memorial. They sat against the Vietnam wall. Washington was shut down.

Don didn't go to Washington, he didn't want to. He just watched the news feeds and stared out the window and went to class like he was supposed to. He did his homework and walked home and ignored the people who asked him questions. All the while he felt so empty, a shell of himself.

"-tello? Don?" The professor's voice broke through his thoughts. Don looked up to find that the professor wasn't alone. A man Don recognized as part of the university staff was standing next to him.

"You need to come with me."

Don nodded, collected his purple binder and threw his pencil into his bag before standing up and shuffling to the front. The man turned and walked out the door, Don followed feeling like he was being lead to his execution. He already knew why he was being called out of class. There was only one reason why. They'd found his brother and he was dead.

The man stopped when he reached the door to the outside. "You need to go home. I have a taxi that can take you – "

"Why?" Don interrupted staring at the man at eye level. "So I can go home and what? Finally be told what I've known all along? That my brother's dead?"

A sad smile formed across the man's face. He straightened up and pushed both hands into either pocket of his trousers. "I'm sorry," he started. "I was under the impression that you already knew. They found him, your brother. He's alive."

The breath caught in Don's throat. He choked on the air. His could feel his ramped heartbeat in his ears. He felt dizzy and lightheaded. His mouth moved but nothing sensible came out. "He... Leo... He-he..."

"I have a car that will take you home."

Don took off like a bullet, like a horse, like a soldier running into battle. He thinks he screamed that a car would take too long over his shoulder but he wasn't sure. He threw open the doors and sprinted for home. It was only a few blocks away anyways.

_Leo. His brother. Found. Not dead. Alive. He's alive. Alive. Alive!_

Donatello had never run so fast in his life.

* * *

"What do you mean... we can't  _see_  him h-he's our brother… I-I, Don, we-" Mike sputtered looking around with wide saucer-like eyes. They shined with a mixture of happiness and anger

 _Alive. His brother was_ alive _._

The family had all congregated around their large dinner table with a burly looking Major who'd introduced himself with a long foreign last name sitting opposite them, Chaplin Anderson sat beside the Major.

"I'm sorry," Anderson looked down at the table with tired eyes. His voice was soft and comforting in every way a disciple of God's should be. "Your brother and the other soldier –"

"Mr. Jones." Splinter supplied running his fingers through his grey and white peppered beard. Splinter had remembered the name of the boy from Leonardo's letters and the times they had been able to use Skype. Splinter could remember being introduced to the red headed, freckle faced boy early in his son's deployment. When the old man had heard that his son and Raphael Jones had been found he had had to take a seat, legs turning to noodles under him. He'd felt weak in ways he hadn't since seeing Yoshi being killed in the war-torn sky over Vietnam.

"Yes, Raphael Jones. They were both injured having been involved in a friendly fire incident upon their rescue. Currently they are in rout to be sent back to the states from our base in Talla."

Mikey tapped his fingers on the table while his foot bounced up and down shaking the ground around his chair. "But-but when he gets here we'll be able to see him, right?"

"It all depends on where he's at and at what state his injuries are in. We don't know much at this point. All we know for certain is that he and Corporal Jones are alive and in the care of US Forces. We will contact you when we have more information."

"Do we know of the extent of his injuries?" Don spoke up for the first time since bursting through the door to two uniformed men standing just inside the doorway.

The Major shook his head, "We have told you all that we know. I am not at liberty to say very much as this is all very new and there are investigations underway as to how the Central American United Army managed to breach the perimeter of a guarded base in what we were lead to believe was neutral territory."

April scratched at the sides of her head, her hair was up in a half hazard ponytail with pieces missing. The red lacked its usual luster while black circles ringed her green eyes. "Do you think that after all of this we should still be there? Do you know if... I mean there's been talk about the president pulling our forces out of Southern Central America -"

"It's not my job to think about that kind of stuff, ma'am." The Major's voice was gruff. His shoulders were broad and posture straight as he spoke. "It's above my pay grade to question why politicians go to war and and young men die. My job is to push papers when necessary and make sure soldiers come home."

 _Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die,_ Donatello recited in his head.

* * *

The hospital parking lot was littered with people. People standing, people sitting, people milling about, people talking with purpose. It made Mikey's skin crawl as he gazed at the sea of people. Police lined both sides of their car as they were escorted to the front of the building. Reaching the entrance, a man in military dress came to the doors and opened them allowing the still-shocked family to disembark the car. April immediately latched onto Splinter's arm, Mikey stayed close to the old man's other side. Don stayed a few feet back taking it all in silently as he had been doing the past month and a half.

When they entered the hospital it was almost dizzying – the stark difference in both people and volume. After the automatic doors slid shut it took away the sounds of the hundreds of people outside. Now inside, the hospital seemed almost sparsely staffed with only a few other men and woman in both military uniforms and white coats around.

The family reached a common area deep inside the hospital and stopped. Don looked up from the tiles he had been studying on the floor to see a man who was older than Leo yet still young with what looked like long blue-black hair and sweatpants standing next to a fragile looking lady with a large canvas bag and white orthopedic shoes. Splinter and his sons were lead towards the two other people then brought to a stop to be introduced.

"Mr. Jones this is Mr. Hamato," the official man in dress uniform introduced. Splinter inclined his head at the same time as Casey gave a weak smile. "Your son and brother are in different rooms for the time being. Mr. Jones if you will follow Major Neelson and Mr. Hamato if you'll fallow me we'll take you to them."

The walk to Leonardo's room was the longest, quietest walk in Michelangelo's life. No one spoke. The only sound was of the echoes of footfalls reverberating off of the solid walls.

Suddenly they were brought to a halt. The door was opened and the man motioned for them to enter.

"Please stay here for a moment, I wish to speak with your brother alone." With that, Splinter took a defiant step into the room.

Leonardo looked up at his father entering his room. Today was a good day, he felt relaxed and the cast on his arm was set to come off later on tonight. There was a deep ache in the base of his back but other than that he felt whole. Alive and whole. Raph had actually managed to take a few slow steps across the room yesterday and that gave the boy hope that he would be able to move around soon as well.

Leo had decided that he would not – under any circumstances – cry when he saw his family. He'd already reasoned with himself that he was a man and he could handle whatever happened with a strong facade. But as soon as his father came around the corner Leo could feel his carefully constructed walls begin to deteriorate. His father took a few steps then stopped at the foot of his bed and looked at his son. They were silent. Monitors beeped in rhythm to Leo's pounding heart. His mouth was dry, everything he had wanted to say to his father being forgotten or getting stuck on his tongue.

Finally, after a few long minutes of silence Leo said, "Hey Dad."

Splinter abruptly did a heal toe and turned to come around the side of Leo's hospital bed. The old man got close to his son before dropping to one knee and grabbing a hard hold of his son's IV riddled hand. Leo jumped slightly and almost flinched away from the aggressive touch but stopped himself before he could pull away reasoning that this was his father and be would never hurt him.

Splinter latched onto Leo's hand then looked him right in the eye. Leonardo's eyes widened as he saw the look in his father's eyes. It was a look he'd never seen before. He stared into the eyes of a man who had been men die and had killed. Who had had to survive in a ditch with broken bones peeking through his skin and blood drying on his hands. He looked into the eyes of a survivor. Absently, Leonardo wondered if his eyes looked the same. If he had the same thousand yard stare.

"I will not bury any of my sons. My sons will bury me," his father's voice was raw, husky. Unshed tears glistened in the creases of the old man's knowing eyes. Immediately Leonardo's eyes began to prickle and sting. He bit his lip hard feeling blood rush to his face. He'd never seen his father so sad before, so vulnerable.

Leo could remember a time when his father was so spitting mad that he'd broken a drum stick over his knee when Mikey was ten and smacked Donnie in the head with it while they were arguing.

He could remember his father silent and stern the first time he'd come home from a party smelling of cheap beer and whiskey.

He could remember his father's proud gaze when he had begun working with swords and studying Bushido at their dojo.

He could remember seeing his father, eyes dull and face grey on the anniversary of their mother's death.

He could remember so many glances and stares and eyes full of laughter and anger. But he'd never really seen this. This look of pure fear mixed with relief and something so primal it made his stomach clench with familiar nausea.

Both Hamato's stared at each other in tense silence. Finally Leonardo could take it no longer. He licked his dry lips with his dry tongue then broke eye contact with his father.

"Dad they... they gave me a medal."

"Is that so?" A small smile broke across the old man's face. It was slender though, with only just a slight quark of his lips.

"Yeah, it's here - in the drawer. I can show you if -"

"It is alright, my son." He grabbed for Leonardo's hand as the boy went to dig at the papers and other objects in a drawer next to his bed. "You do not have to show me. It is only a ribbon."

"No, no," Leo took his hand back quickly. He didn't know why but suddenly he was filled with this awful need to show his father the thing he hadn't looked at since being presented with it. The thing he hid. "They gave it to me and I-I, I mean I want you to have it -" back turned, Leo didn't see the worry that filled Splinter's eyes as he saw his son rummage desperately around papers and books. His movements were jerky, spastic. Nothing like the way his calm, cool and collected son had ever been.

Suddenly a wooden box was presented to Splinter by a slender hand and a few hard, labored breaths. "You can have it – I mean, it's for you. They-the president gave it to me he-he said that I was brave and that – "

"My son," Splinter said to his eldest child. Slowly he took the box from Leonardo's shaking hands and laid it out of sight to the side. He grabbed both of his son's hands with his leathery fingers and brought them close to his heart. By this point Leonardo's eyes were wide, his pupils large.

A single tear fell down from Splinters eye, "I am so proud of you, Leonardo."

With strength that he hadn't felt in weeks Leo wrapped his arms around his father. "I wanted to make you proud." He cried wetly into Splinter's shirt.

"You make me proud every day. You are my son."

* * *

It feels like hours later until the others are finally let into the hospital room, though Mike realizes that it was probably only a few minutes. When they cross into the room there is a collective breath taken by both him and April. Don, as he'd been for the past month and a half, reminds silent. Mikey rushes to his big brother slinging his arms around him and grabbing at his gown being mindful of the assorted bandages and IV lines that pepper his body. After a few seconds Mikey let go of Leo and retreats back to Don's side almost as suddenly as he'd come.

"Hey Leo," he whispers.

"Hi Mikey," Leo can't help but stare at his brothers. "Hey Donnie."

He wasn't scared of what his brothers would say. Well, he was but as with everything else he'd learned, being frightened didn't help anything.

"Do... Do you hate us, Leo?" Mikey questioned, his hands clasped together harshly defining his white knuckles and nail beds. Leo looked at his little brother. Blonde hair, skin tanner than Don yet not as sun kissed as his own. His brother was taller than he remembered, his shoulders broader. His teeth were a shade whiter and he wonders if he doesn't have to wear that retainer anymore at night. The way his youngest brother stands with his shoulders slumped, head bowed, back slouched down in a miserable curve. Mikey looks so old yet so very small and young at the same time. Don looks just as awful. His face lined with worry and eyes dull with many sleepless nights. His hair was longer than he remembered, darker too. He looked skinny in all the wrong places. His brother looked as bad as Leonardo felt. Don was looking down at the floor refusing to meet his eyes.

Hate, what a strong word. Did he hate his family?

"No Mike, I don't hate you." Leo said finally after too long of his family holding their collective breaths. "I could never hate you."

A smile stretched across Mike's face. He laid his hand down gently on the foot of his brother's bed to make sure he wouldn't sit on anything important then he plopped down next to Leo's leg. "I missed you dude."

"I missed you too shell-for-brains," the smile on Leo's face was small but helped mask his relief at seeing no hate or fear in his littlest brother's eyes.

"It's a good thing they found you," Donatello said suddenly looking away from his family and scratching his arm. His voice was gruff making the smile vanish from Leonardo's face in a flash. He opened his mouth to say something - to say  _anything_. To beg forgiveness, to apologize, anything that would make his smart brother come closer so he could wrap him in a hug and kiss his forehead. But Don cut him off as he spoke again bringing his eyes up to finally meet his older brother's gaze. "Because I really fucking hated being the oldest."

A quick chuckle cracked from Leo's mouth before he schooled his face and said, "You don't have to be the big brother. That's my job, Brainiac."

Don took a step forward, "I wanted you to go to college."

"I know," Leo said nodding in understanding.

Don took another step, "I told you I would write your entrance essay, I could get you into a good school."

"I know," Leo answered beginning to understand this game Don himself didn't realize he was playing.

"I told you I would help pay for a ring so you could marry April." Another step taken. He was halfway to Leo.

"Yes, you did," Leo nodded.

"I went to the vigil they had for you and the other soldiers in Central Park."

"How was it?" Leo didn't want to know.

"Horrible. Awful. They showed pictures. I saw people, your friends, people I recognized from the pictures you sent Dad. I saw pictures of their bodies."

Leo kept quiet. He wasn't ready to talk about this with his family. He didn't think he would ever be.

Don was almost to Leo, just two more steps. "When they came to the door and told us you were missing in action I told Dad you were dead."

"But I'm not."

"No," Don reached Leo's side. "No you're not." He bent down, eyes overflowing maching Leonardo's and whispered. "I'm so sorry  _Onii-Chan_."

Leonardo somehow found his voice. "There's nothing to be sorry for,  _Otōto_."

Don stepped back feeling like he could take a breath for the first time since Leonardo left for war.

Leo turned to look at the last person in his room. He pulled his best smirk at the red headed girl standing in the back. April put her hand over her mouth as her face crumbled into a sob. Her green eyes became red as she walked forward towards the hand Splinter wasn't holding.

"I thought I'd lost you," April's wail is muffled as she buries her face into Leonardo's shoulder. Softly Leo ran his hand over her side and try's to calm her. She comes back up and drops to her knees to grab at either side of his face. Tears seep down her cheeks, her nose runs, her eyes are red and puffy but Leonardo doesn't think he's ever seen anyone so beautiful in his entire life.

He clears his throat, "I will always come back for you." His bottom lip quivers in the way all men's do when they try so hard to hold back their tears. He mouth pulls into a deep frown before his own face crumbles and he lets out an exhausted sob. "I won't ever leave you." He looks to his family all around him all in different states of relieved tears running from their tired eyes. "I will never leave any of you. I love you."

* * *

Casey Jones in all of his six foot sweatpants wearing self comes charging into his younger brother's room. He doesn't stop when he sees his brother or when Miss Molly yells his name, he struts forwards with his hands clenched into fists and jaw stuck out.

"Listen here you little prick, you eva' and I mean  _eva'_  put me, I mean  _Molly_  through something like this again I will wring your neck." He grabs the front of Raphael's hospital down and bunches the fabric. "Do you even know how upset she was? Do you know what she went through!? You almost got yerself fuckin' killed! I-we-she thought you were  _dead_. She didn't sleep fo' three freaking days because o'you. So don't... don't..." Casey had to stop to wipe at his eyes aggressively before continuing in a slower, not quiet but normal voice. "Don't  _ever_  fucking do that again."

With that he grabbed Raph's shoulders, fell to his knees and yanked him into a hug. Raph winced as freshly healed bones and tender skin were scraped and pulled but he didn't try to get away. Slowly he brought his hands up to hug his older brother back. It was then he noticed that his shoulder was wet, Casey was crying.

"Don't ever fucking scare me like that again Raph," Casey commanded with a shaking voice. Raph shook his head the best he could while still being held in his brother's arms.

"No. Neva'."

They stayed like that for just a few minutes longer before Raph couldn't take it anymore. "Come on Case," he sniffed blinking hard trying to dry the tears that had escaped. "Pick your manhood back up and get off'a me ya bonehead."

Casey laughed untangling himself. "You did good Raphie Boy." They looked at each other for a long moment before Raph cleared his throat and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Call me that again and I'll tell everyone yer first name's really Arnold."

"Hey, Arnold Casey Jones is'a good name. Strong."

"Right," Raph chuckled.

"Masculine."

"Maybe not so much."

"It's got character."

"Yer a character, knucklehead." Raph smiled up at his brother. Behind him Miss Molly had a tissue to her eyes as she watched the boys.

"Who you callin' a knucklehead? Yer lookin' at the senior mechanic at Big Al's Automotive."

"That so? Shit. They must be scraping to bottom of the barrel over at Al's."

Molly thought she'd never heard so much love in the brothers voices before.

* * *

The day they were set to leave the hospital Leonardo wheeled himself up to Raphael and grabbed his hand. "You're my brother."

"Always," Raph answered without hesitation. "We're family."

"You still owe me a burger from PJ's," Leo smiled as a nurse took the bars to his wheelchair. He'd been working on walking during his physical therapy sessions but it was slow progress. He could stand on his own at lease and for now that was all he could ask for. The doctors said it would be a hard road to train his leg muscles to hold his weight again and move around but he knew he could do it. He knew he would walk again. Another nurse grabbed the bars of Raph's wheelchair. It was hospital policy so the redhead was forced to be wheeled out of the hospital even though he could walk with only a slight limp.

Raph smiled back at his friend, "Let's go there right now. PJ's is only like, five hours from Washington DC right? We could hop a plane and be there in two." Both boys laughed. The nurses looked down at them with amused eyes. Raph sat back in his chair then leaned to look up at the pretty nurse who was about to push him towards the entrance and towards his family.

"Alright Nurse Chapel, thrusters on full. Punch it," he pointed to the door to their room. The nurse - named Greenswick, Leo knew - rolled her eyes but smiled and pushed Raph out of the room. Raphael looked back at Leo with a smile and a thumb up before disappearing around the corner. Leo looked up at the older nurse who had helped him the most since he'd been carted into the hospital drugged out and confused.

"Well Sergeant Hamato, are you ready to go home?" Her voice was warm, soothing. It reminded Leo of Splinter.

"Yeah. I'm ready to go home."

End.


End file.
